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COLLECTANEA 
THOMAS  CARLYLE 


This  book  has  been  printed  from  type  as  follows: 
500  copies  on  Old  Stratford  paper. 
125  copies  on  Van  Gelder  paper. 
15  copies  on  Imperial  Japan  paper. 


COLLECTANEA 


®I}0ma0  Olarlgk 


t82J-J855 


"For  the  whole,  as  it  consisteth  of 
parts;  so  without  all  the  parts  it  is  not 
whole;  and  to  make  it  absolute,  is  re- 
quired not  only  the  parts,  but  such  parts 
as  are  true." 

— Ben  Jonson.  Explorata, 


EDITED   BY 

SAMUEL  ARTHUR  JONES 


CANTON  PENNSYLVANIA 


MCM  III 


Copyright,  1903, 
By  LE^3^IS  Buddy  III 


z 
o 

22 


a: 

O 


Dewitt  Miller,  the  Bibliotaph, 

and 

Paul  Lemperly,  the  Bibliophile, 

with  thanks  beyond  words. 


434036 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

These  writings  of  Thomas  Carlyle  were  contributed  to  the 
"New  Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  I82I;  April,  1822.  The 
London  "Athenaeum,"  January,  1837.  The  "  Examiner,"  Sep- 
tember, 1840.  "Eraser's  Magazine,"  May,  1849.  The  London 
"Athenaeum,"  The  London  "Times,"  November,  1855,  and  have 
been  hitherto  uncollected. 

Three  of  these  have  escaped  the  bibliographers  entirely;  the 
Review  of  Heintze's  "Selections,"  "Indian  Meal,"  and  the 
"  Letter  to  the  Times." 


CONTENTS 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF  EXALTED  CHARACTERS     17 


FAUSTUS  57 


FAUST'S  CURSE  93 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN  TRANSLATION  OF  BURNS         97 


INDIAN  MEAL  107 


A  LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  TIMES  117 


APPENDIX 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP  127 


vn 


PREFATORY    NOTE 

It  provokes  a  smile  at  the  expense  of  the  critics 
to  learn,  and  by  his  own  confession,  that  Thomas 
Carlyle  is  enrolled  in  the  Grand  Army  of  'rejected 
contributors.'  Looking  back  at  the  battle  he  had 
fought  and  won,  he  wrote:  "It  must  be  owned  that 
my  first  entrances  into  glorious  'Literature'  were 
abundantly  stinted  and  painful;  but  a  man  does 
enter  if,  with  a  small  gift,  he  persist;  and  perhaps 
it  is  no  disadvantage  if  the  door  be  several  times 
slammed  in  his  face  as  a  salutary  preliminary." 
Twice,  at  least,  was  the  door  slammed  in  his  face 
before  Dr.  Brewster  (not  yet  "Sir  David")  gave  him 
an  allotment  of  hack-work  on  the  "Edinburgh 
Encyclopaedia;"  but  the  Fates  had  determined 
that  Thomas  Carlyle  should  'persist,'  for  he  was 
to  be  "a  writer  of  books." 

He  was  gifted  with  what  Goldsmith  calls  'a  knack 
of  hoping,'  but  the  gloomy  Scotch  scholar  him- 
self christened  his  faculty  'desperate  hope.'  He 
could  also  'toil  terribly;'  and  in  tenacity  of  pur- 
pose he  was  as  indomitable  as  Robert  Bruce. 
Given  such  qualities,  together  with  no  'small  gift," 
and  the  very  natural  outcome  is  the  thirty-four 
octavo  volumes  labelled  The  Collected  Writings 
of  Thomas  Carlyle. 

Why  add  another  book  to  that  long  list?  He 
did    not   see    fit    to   resurrect   the   'prentice-work 

ix 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

which  for  nearly  fifty  years  had  been  'decently 
interred '  in  the  forgotten  pages  of  booksel- 
ler Waugh's  soon  bankrapit  "New  Edinburgh 
Magazine  ."  But  these  discarded  children  of  his 
younger  days  are  legitimate,  though  ill-favored, 
and  they  also  have  a  significant  value  for  the  stu- 
dent of  Literature  as  illustrating  the  development 
of  the  Ecclefechan  stonemason's  son  into  a  verita- 
ble Man  of  Letters. 

Carlyle  was  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  of  his  age 
when  he  wrote  his  review  of  Joanna  Baillie's 
"Metrical  Legends  of  Exalted  Characters ,"  yet 
was  he  then  but  trying  his  wings  —  if  not  as  timid- 
ly, at  least  as  awkwardly  as  a  new-fledged  bird. 
The  strong  pinions  that  enabled  one  "Diogenes 
Teufelsdrockh"  to  soar  from  the  attic  of  his  abode 
in  the  Wahngasse  beyond  the  very  stars  are  not  at 
all  discernible  in  Miss  Baillie's  callow  but  confi- 
dent critic.  Carlyle  now  takes  rank  with  De  Quin- 
cey  in  the  scope  and  luxuriance  of  his  vocabulary; 
in  J  821  his  slender  stock  of  synonymes  is  all  too 
apparent,  and  his  style  (which  he  has  yet  to  find)  is 
even  uncouth  in  its  irregularities:  nevertheless, 
there  are  gleams  and  glimpses  of  half-felicities  that 
give  promise  of  better  things,  'if  he  persist.' 

As  a  workman  and  at  the  same  age  Carlyle  was 
by  no  means  so  facile  as  Lowell ,  but  his  earliest 
attempt  at  deliberate  criticism  reveals  a  degree 
of  independent  judgement  to   which   the  author 

X 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

of  the  Biglow  Papers  had  not  then  attained . 
Carlyle  never  worshipped  the  idols  of  the  forum, 
the  theatre,  or  the  market-place.  He  passed  his 
own  pronouncement,  sturdily  as  his  out-spoken 
father  would  have  done,  upon  the  poetical  plati- 
tudes of  Joanna  Baillie  regardless  of  the  shower  of 
adulation  which  drenched  that  most  renowned 
and  'respectable'  of  rhyming  spinsters.  Time  has 
justified  his  findings  and  it  was  easy  for  Mrs.  Oli- 
phant,  in  J882,  to  make  her  summing-up  so  com- 
pletely in  accord  with  his  piece  of  'prentice-work 
honestly  and  fearlessly  done  some  sixty  years  be- 
fore —  and  then  against  the  full  tide  of  general 
opinion.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  'Apollo's  venal  son,' 
was  found  lacking  in  either  Carlyle's  capability  of 
sound  judgement  or  in  the  courage  to  exercise  it. 
In  the  introduction  to  the  third  canto  of  Ma.r^ 
mion,  Scott  made  such  a  slip  as  this: 

.    .    .  the  wild  harp,  which  silent  hung 
By  silver  Avon's  sylvan  shore, 
'Till  twice  an  hundred  years  rolled  o'er; 
When  she,  the  bold  Enchantress,  came 
With  fearless  hand  and  heart  on  flame  ! 
From  the  pale  willow  snatched  the  treasure, 
And  swept  it  with  a  kindred  measure, 
'Till  Avon's  swans,  while  rung  the  grove 
With  Montford's  hate  and  Basil's  love, 
Awakening  at  the  inspired  strain, 
Deemed  their  own  Shakspeare  lived  again. 

After  such  a  tinkling  drizzle  from  the  font  of 
Castalay  one  feels  that  Byron's  sneer  at  the  'pros- 

xi 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

tituted  muse'  is  not  without  the  extenuating  prov- 
ocation. 

Bailie  "Waugh's  obscure  critic  was  a  better  judge 
of  poetical  poultry  than  Avon's  simple  swans  or 
even  Sir  Walter  himself,  and  the  raw  recruit  whom 
the  dazzling  sheen  of  Waugh's  guineas  had  tempt- 
ed to  mount  the  critic's  tripod  did  not  hesitate  to 
fly  in  the  face  of  "those  qualified  to  judge" — such 
are  Miss  Baillie's  own  words — whose  unstinted 
and  intemperate  praise  had  fully  persuaded  the 
fertile  female  rhymster  that,  verily,  her  lips  had 
been  touched  with  fire  from  the  altar. 

The  clear  sanity  of  Carlyle's  very  first  uncen- 
sured  criticism  is  noteworthy;  for  an  unknown 
scribbler  in  a  moribund  magazine  who  does  not 
mistake  the  eau  sucre  of  Sentimentality  for  the 
dew  of  Helicon  is  a  phenomenon  as  rare  as  it  is 
indicative. 

"The  first  literary  use  to  which  Carlyle  turned 
his  knowledge  of  German  was  in  the  writing  of  his 
"Life  of  Schiller."  .  .  .  He  had  indeed  written 
an  article  on  Faust  before  this  date  {Neiv  Edtri" 
burgh  Re'Vieiv,  April  J822),  but  it  is  a  compara- 
tively crude  production,  and  Carlyle  did  not  con- 
sider it  worthy  of  a  place  in  his  Collected  Works." 

Thus  writes  one  of  the  most  loving  and  pains- 
taking of  editors;  but  doth  not  the  small  boy  who 
has  had  the  'luck'  to  hook  monsters  after  long  and 
patient   angling   throw   away   the   little  minnows 

xii 


PREFATORY    NOTE 

(that  he  had  accepted  gladly  in  the  morning)  to 
display  his  prowess  in  his  larger  game?  Are  we 
not  all  boys  of  a  larger  and  not  always  a  wiser 
growth  ? 

Judged  at  this  late  day,  it  may  be  regarded  as  "a 
comparatively  crude  production" — but,  in  April 
J822?  It  is  doubtful  if  at  that  period  there  were 
six  men  in  Great  Britain  who  knew  of  Goethe's 
"Faust" — if,  indeed,  there  were  any  other  than  the 
son  of  James  Carlyle  who  had  read  it  as  discern- 
ingly. At  a  time  when  English  Literature  in- 
cludes all  manner  of  ineptitudes  christened 
"Translations"  of  Goethe's  opus  maximus  it  is 
not  difficult  to  despise  the  day  of  small  begin- 
nings. As  the  product  of  a  young  man  who  began 
the  study  of  German  only  two  years  previously,  it 
is  a  somewhat  rare  'crudity.' 

The  rhymed  rendering  of  "Faust's  Curse"  was 
published  ten  years  later  and  of  it  Carlyle  wrote 
in  his  Diary:  "Last  Friday  saw  my  name  in  large 
letters  at  the  'Athenaeum'  office  in  Catherine 
Street,  Strand;  hurried  on  with  downcast  eyes  as 
if  I  had  seen  myself  in  the  pillory." 

That  terrifying  spectacle  to  be  seen  at  the  Athe- 
nasum  office  was  "Faust's  Curse,"  which  hung 
printed  there:  such  a  rarity  was  that  famous  im- 
precation in  the  year  of  Grace,  1832  —  ten  years 
after  the  publication  of  Carlyle's  first  'compara- 
tively crude  production.' 

xiii 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

Carlyle's  review  of  Heintze's  translation  of  Burns 
was  a  labor  of  love  done  for  the  usually-impecuni- 
ous and  always-improvident  Leigh  Hunt,  then 
writing  and  publishing  his  "Examiner."  It  was 
only  eight  years  since  Carlyle  had  written  the 
rhymed  translation  of  "Faust's  Curse"  which  'hung 
printed'  in  the  Athenaeum  office,  but  he  was  now 
the  renowned  author  of  "The  French  Revolution. 
A  History.";  the  despised  "Sartor  Resartus"  had 
been  published  as  a  book  in  America  —  edition 
following  edition  with  unwonted  celerity  —  and 
even  his  "Essays"  had  been  collected  and  publish- 
ed by  the  esurient  'Yankees:'  Eraser  being  obli- 
ged to  import  sheets  thereof  in  J839  to  meet  the 
English  demand,  and  in  the  next  year  (again  com- 
pelled by  the  rapid  sale  thereof)  to  republish  the 
"Essays"  himself.  Carlyle  had  also  protested  that 
Emerson  had  been  too  unsparing  of  the  capital 
letters  without  which  the  perfervid  Scotchman 
could  not  satisfactorily  express  himself;  so  they 
were  restored  in  the  English  reissue.  Eraser  craft- 
ily called  it  the  "Second  Edition,"  as  if  the  honor 
of  preparing  the  first  had  been  due  to  the  demand 
of  Carlyle's  British  readers.  All  this,  in  the  ex- 
pressive slang  of  the  stable,  enabled  the  struggling 
Scotchman  to  'feel  his  oats,'  — and  feel  them  he 
surely  did;  for  he  "wor  on  the  rampage,  Pip"  when 
he  wrote  "Chartism"(I840). 

"Burn's  songs  have  a  tune,  so  as  few  or  rather 
xiv 


PREFATORY    NOTE 

as  no  modern  songs  we  know  of  have.  Every 
thought,  every  turn  of  phrase,  sings  itself;  the 
tune  modulates  it  all,  shapes  it  as  a  soul  does  the 
body  it  is  to  dwell  in.  The  tune  is  always  the  soul 
of  a  song,  in  this  sense;  that  is  to  say,  provided 
the  song  be  a  true  song,  and  have  any  soul." 

When  the  editor  read  this  he  felt  that  the  dic- 
tum should  not  be  left  in  the  neglected  pages  of  a 
little-known  extinct  magazine. 

How  many  of  the  millions  of  British  readers 
("mostly  fools")  were  aware  that  the  spectacle  of 
Carlyle  on  Oliver  CronxTvell  was  soon  followed 
by  that  of  Carlyle  on  "Indian  Meal!" 

It  is  often  urged  that  Carlyle  spent  his  strength 
in  finding  the  fault  rather  than  in  providing  the 
remedy:  the  forgotten  paper  in  "Frasier's  Maga- 
zine" will  prove  a  revelation  to  many.  He  had 
bestirred  himself  in  behalf  of  famine-stricken  Ire- 
land even  before  he  had  made  his  journey  thither 
to  learn,  if  he  could,  the  secret  of  her  troubles  and 
to  find  the  remedy  therefor.  Although  he  did 
say  that  the  cure  would  be  to  'submerge  the  whole 
island  for  twenty-four  hours,'  he  had  the  sympa- 
thetic tear  on  his  face  even  while  the  grim  jest 
was  on  his  lips. 

Alas!  Even  "Indian  corn"  in  all  the  prodigal 
profusion  of  nature  may  serve  to  disconcert  the 
'Malthusian  fling,'  still  it  is  not  the  panacea  for 
Ireland's  "curse  of  eight  hundred  years." 

The  reader  who  is  curious  to  learn  how  Carlyle 

XV 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

gathered  his  material  and  moulded  it  to  his  pur- 
pose can  be  gratified  by  consulting  the  Carlyle- 
Emerson  correspondence  as  edited  by  Professor 
Norton:  Letters  cxxxviii,  cxxxix,  cxI,  ccxli,  cxlii. 
In  his  "Autobiography,"  Leigh  Hunt,  who  had 
long  been  Carlyle's  near  neighbor,  wrote: 

"I  believe  that  what  Mr.  Carlyle  loves  better 
than  his  fault-finding,  with  all  its  eloquence,  is  the 
face  of  any  human  creature  that  looks  suffering, 
and  loving  and  sincere;  and  I  believe  further,  that 
if  the  fellow-creature  were  suffering  only,  and 
neither  loving  nor  sincere,  but  had  come  to  a  pass 
of  agony  in  this  life,  which  put  him  at  the  mercy 
of  some  good  man  for  some  last  help  and  conso- 
lation towards  his  grave,  even  at  the  risk  of  loss 
to  repute,  and  a  sure  amount  of  pain  and  vexa- 
tion, that  man,  if  the  groan  reached  him  in  its 
forlornness,  would  be  Thomas  Carlyle." 

The  "Letter  to  the  Editor  of  the  Times" — 
which  the  Rev.  Alexander  Napier  found  in  the 
"Athenasum"  and  has  fitly  embalmed  in  his 
edition  of  "Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson," — is  touch- 
ingly  corroborative.  Leigh  Hunt's  testimony  and 
the  pious  and  searching  enthusiasm  of  the  "Let- 
ter to  the  Times"  are  commended  to  the  consid- 
eration of  every  reviler  of  the  memory  of  the  son 
of  James  and  Margaret  Carlyle. 

The  editor  begs  leave  to  state  that  he  has  not 

deemed   it   proper   to   alter   the   punctuation  of 

Carlyle's  original  printed  text. 

S.  A.  J. 

Ann  Arbor,  1 2th  of  July,  1902. 

xvi 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF  EXALTED 
CHARACTERS 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF  EXALTED 
CHARACTERS^ 

\_Ne<zi>  Edinburgh  RevieTV,  October,  1 82 1.] 

Miss  Baillie  has  long  enjoyed  a  large  tribute  of 
public  favor;  and  the  powers  she  possesses  are  no 
doubt  fully  sufficient  to  vindicate  her  claims  to  it. 
Yet,  if  we  mistake  not,  this  distinction  has  been 
earned  more  by  :the!  display  of  intellectual  super- 
iority in  general,  than  of  eminent  poetical  genius; 
more  by  the  avoidance  of  great  blemishes,  than 
the  production  of  great  beauties.  Her  poetry  rare- 
ly belongs  to  the  higher  departments  of  the  art; 
she  deals  little  in  the  exhibition  of  sublime  emo- 
tions— whether  of  an  energetic  or  a  tender  cast ;  her 
store  of  imagery,  her  range  of  feeling,  are  both 
circumscribed;  and  though  her  studies  have  been 
professedly  devoted,  with  an  exclusive  preference, 
to  the  workings  of  passion  and  the  various  aspects 
of  human  character,  it  is  only  with  passions  and 
characters  of  a  common  stamp  that  she  appears  to 
be  completely  successful.  Her  tragic  portraits  are 
certainly,  in  some  cases,  strongly  sketched;  yet  in 
general  they  are  nothing  more  than  sketches,  and 

'  Metrical  Legends  of  Exalted  Characters. 

By  Joanna  Baillie,  London,  1821. 

19 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

sketches  too  by  one  who  has  observed  rather  than 
felt, — wno  has  se»in  the  effects  produced  by  great 
conjunctures  and  surprising  emergences,  but  who 
has  little  power  to  conceive  the  actual  being  of  an 
impassioned  spirit  subjected  to  their  influence. 

From  this  cause  it  follows,  that,  in  Miss  Baillie's 
dramas,  the  characteristic  lineaments  of  her  heroes 
are  educed — if  educed  at  all — rather  by  the  man- 
agement of  external  situations,  than  by  the  direct 
expression  of  internal  consciousness;  rather  by  the 
display  of  actions,  than  the  collision  of  feelings 
manifesting  themselves  naturally  in  the  progress 
of  the  dialogue.  With  great  inventive  powers, 
indeed,  something  impressive  may  possibly  be 
accomplished,  even  in  this  less  poetic  method: 
but  invention  is  not  a  quality  in  which  Miss  Baillie 
particularly  excels;  and  hence  her  management  of 
those  untoward  instruments  she  employs  is  not 
always  the  most  felicitous. 

These  original  deficiencies,  important  enough  in 
themselves,  have  been  enhanced,  and  rendered 
prominent,  by  Miss  Baillie's  mode  of  composition. 
Her  performances  have  too  much  the  appearance 
of  forethought  and  plan,  to  pass  for  any  relatives 
of  nature;  we  find  abundance  of  criticism  and  logic 
in  them,  but  too  little  of  genuine  peotic  fervour; 
and  the  project  of  producing  two  plays,  a  tragedy 
and  a  comedy,  on  each  of  the  passions,  not  only 
had  something  mechanical  in  it,  something  very 
alien  to  the  spontaneous  inspiration  which  poets 
boast  of,  but  also  tended  to  render  her  characters 

20 


EXALTED    CHARACTERS 

too  abstract  and  uncompounded  to  excite  much 
interest.  The  beings  wrought  out  on  such  a  system 
are  apt  to  resemble  personifications  rather  than 
persons;  they  must  hate,  or  envy,  or  love;  and  an 
author,  in  his  anxiety  to  make  them  do  so,  with 
sufficient  energy  to  give  effect,  is  in  danger  of  for- 
getting that  they  have  anything  to  do  besides. 
Much  ingenuity,  and  much  vividness  of  conception 
may  be  evinced  in  this  manner,  as  Godwin  and 
others  have  exemplified;  but  it  is  not  thus,  we 
imagine,  that  deep  feeling  will  be  awakened  in  a 
reader,  or  any  character  brought  forward,  that 
shall  have  much  chance  to  dwell  on  his  memory. 
In  a  word,  we  may  think  them  to  be  very  amiable 
or  very  detestable,  but  we  do  not  feel  them  to  be 
men.  It  is  true,  but  Miss  Baillie's  plays  are  not  all 
liable,  in  the  same,  or  in  any  eminent  degree,  to 
this  objection;  but  in  all  of  them  its  force  may  be 
discovered  more  or  less  distinctly,  and  never  with- 
out great  injury  to  the  result. 

With  such  weighty  drawbacks,  it  is  sufficiently 
clear  that  our  author  has  no  title  to  rank  among 
the  first  class  of  poets.  But  it  is  equally  so,  we 
readily  admit,  that  she  possesses  gifts  enough  to 
raise  her  far  above  the  lowest:  nor  should  it  be 
forgotten,  that,  as  her  pretentions  are  much  less 
urgent  than  her  merits,  so  if  she  has  fallen  short 
of  the  highest  excellence,  our  censure  of  her  fail- 
ure should  be  less  marked  than  our  commenda- 
tion of  her  partial  success.  But,  independently  of 
such  claims  to  indulgence,  an  attentive  reader  can- 

21 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

not  avoid  being  struck  with  the  many  beauties  that 
are  scattered  over  her  writings.  She  cannot  be 
compared  with  our  older  dramatists.  Basil  and 
Ethwall  are  not  known  to  us  like  Othello  and 
Macbeth ;  they  do  not  incorporate  themselves  with 
our  thoughts  and  become  part  of  the  mind's 
household  goods;  but,  though  incomplete  and 
unequal  as  dramatic  characters,  they  bear  traces 
of  keen  observation  and  energetic  feeling,  accom- 
panied at  times  with  a  strength  of  conception — 
which,  if  it  had  extended  over  the  general  surface 
of  those  poems — comprising  the  exalted,  as  it 
often  docs  the  common  mental  condition  of  the 
agent,  would  have  amply  contradicted  our  pre- 
vious criticisms.  Nor  is  the  effect  of  those  intrinsic 
qualities  obstructed  by  a  depraved  taste  or  a  faulty 
style.  The  allusions  and  metaphors  are  always 
pure,  often  at  once  expressive  and  picturesque ; 
while  the  language  in  which  they  are  clothed,  is 
formed  on  the  best  models,  and  exhibits  those 
beauties  to  the  greatest  advantage. 

In  her  less  distinguished  productions,  the  same 
fundamental  excellencies,  though  more  sparingly 
developed,  are  still  discernible. 

There  is  a  frank  and  vigorous  air  about  her  poet- 
ry, which  pleases  by  seeming  to  perform  all  that  it 
attempts.  She  has  an  acute  relish  for  the  simple 
affections  of  humanity,  and  the  simple  aspects  of 
nature;  and  occasionally,  there  are  thrills  of  wild 
sublimity,— which,  as  they  rise  without  violence 
from  the  surrounding  emotions,  give  dignity  and 

22 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

relief  to  their  unpretending  beauties.  Indeed,  it  is 
this  unpretendingness,  this  utter  want  of  affecta- 
tion, which  constitutes  the  redeeming  quality  of 
Miss  Baillie's  writings.  Be  the  subject  high  or  low, 
she  seems  as  if  she  were  completely  mistress  of  it; 
or  at  least,  she  avoids  all  unnatural  expedients,  and 
goes  quietly  along  her  destined  course — indifferent 
to  success,  if  it  cannot  be  purchased  without  the 
sacrifice  of  truth  and  moderation. 

Good  and  evil  are  always  mixed.  It  is  probably 
by  the  undue  cultivation  of  her  reasoning  faculties, 
that  Miss  Baillie  has  enfeebled  the  imaginative 
vigour  of  her  poetry;  and  by  the  same  process, 
no  less  probably,  she  has  also  imparted  to  it  this 
unaffected  simplicity,  its  principal  ornament.  To 
the  same  cause  must  likewise  be  ascribed,  at  least 
in  part,  the  tone  of  wholesome,  honest  feeling, 
which  pervades  all  her  writings,  and  so  agreeably 
distinguishes  them,  in  an  age  when  poetry  is  de- 
formed by  a  spirit  of  morbid  exaggeration,  the 
more  baneful,  as  its  tendency  is  to  inspire  disrespect 
or  disgust  for  everything  that  is  peaceable  or 
happy  in  the  ordinary  ways  of  men.  In  Miss 
Baillie's  writings,  if  we  fail  to  meet  with  glowing, 
yet  faithful  exhibitions  of  perturbed  and  subli- 
mated feelings,  we  also  fail  to  meet  with  the  reck- 
less waitings,  the  bitter  execrations  of  existing 
institutions,  the  cold  derision  of  human  nature, 
and  the  meretricious  charms,  not  more  dazzling 
than  pernicious,  which  so  deeply  infect  much  of 
our  present  literature.    In  the  absence  of  heroes, 

23 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

we  are  not  presented  with  ruffians,  decked  out  in 
colours  which  embellish  rather  than  conceal  their 
villainy;  if  we  have  less  impetuous  sentiment, 
what  we  have  is  all  genuine;  it  does  not  array 
itself  in  oriential  gorgeousness,  it  does  not  languish 
in  diseased  melancholy,  or  rave  in  the  frenzy  of 
despair, — but  moves  calmly  and  steadily  along  in 
cheerful  comeliness,  and  the  heart  is  better  for  it. 
Miss  Baillie,  in  short,  though  not  a  great  poet,  is 
in  every  sense  a  good  one. 

With  such  impressions  of  Miss  Baillie's  powers, 
and  such  dispositions  to  like,  if  not  to  admire,  any 
thing  proceeding  from  her  pen,  we  expected  to  re- 
ceive more  delight  from  the  present  volume  than 
a  perusal  of  it  has  actually  afforded  us.  At  first 
view,  the  title  "Metrical  Legends  of  Exalted  Char- 
acters" suggests  the  idea  of  an  undertaking  emi- 
nently calculated  to  give  room  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  much  striking  description,  and  much 
delightful,  as  well  as  highly  valuable  sentiment. 
Though  poetry  is  an  imaginative  art,  its  produc- 
tions must  be  founded  on  reality  in  some  sense, 
or  they  cannot  yield  us  gratification.  The  ancient 
critical  precept,  that  every  drama  should  have  for 
its  groundwork  some  historical  or  credited  event, 
was  not  without  a  show  of  reason;  for  although 
the  imagination  maybe  filled,  and  the  heart  touch- 
ed, as  modern  experience  has  frequently  proved, 
by  events  and  characters  purely  fictitious,  yet  still 
there  is  a  hankering  after  truth  in  all  of  us;  and  the 
idea  that  what  we  are  contemplating  did  actually 

24 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

in  part  take  place,  and  for  aught  we  know,  in 
whole— that  the  characters  before  us  were  in  fact 
real  inhabitants  of  this  earth,  creatures  of  flesh  and 
blood  like  ourselves,  adds  a  wonderful  vivacity  to 
our  impressions,  at  the  time  we  receive  them.  The 
most  hardened  novel  reader  is  now  and  then  as- 
sailed by  a  chilling  qualm,  even  at  the  very  nodus 
of  his  story,  on  reflecting  that  all  this  mighty  stir 
around  him  is  but  a  fantasy;  and  though  he  strives 
to  banish  such  suggestions,  they  return  upon  him 
when  the  intoxication  is  over,  and  never  return 
without  a  sensible  diminution  of  his  pleasure.  No 
doubt  this  disadvantage  must  continue  to  be  quiet- 
ly submitted  to;  the  real  occurrencies  of  the  world 
are  too  circumscribed  and  prosaic  to  give  scope  to 
our  full  energies;  and  it  is  a  grand  privilege  possess- 
ed by  us,  that  we  can  at  will  frame  an  ideal  scene, 
where  all  shall  be  fair  and  free,  where  the  passions 
and  powers  of  our  nature  may  be  arranged,  and  set 
in  opposition,  and  developed  as  we  choose,  while 
things  without  us  offer  no  obstruction  to  our  crea- 
tive efforts.  But  if  this  shadowy  world  delights  us 
merely  as  it  seems  to  afford  space  for  the  unre- 
strained exertion  of  human  will,  the  effect  must 
depend  on  our  belief,  however  transient,  of  its  real- 
ity; and  hence,  if  cases  should  occur,  in  which  the 
restraints  alluded  to  were  wanting  in  a  great  meas- 
ure, and  might  be  removed  entirely  without  vio- 
lating, not  the  transient,  but  the  permanent  belief 
we  have  of  their  reality,  the  effect  of  such  cases 
would  be  more  intense,  and  therefore  more  poet- 

25 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

ical.  Now  "exalted  characters"  furnish  just  such 
cases  as  we  have  supposed.  They  are  men  in  whom 
the  low  elements  of  humanity  are  feeble  or  almost 
extinct;  and  the  poet  has  no  task  to  perform  with 
regard  to  them,  but  to  present  their  mind,  and 
such  of  their  actions  as  unfold  it,  full  and  luminous 
before  us,  with  all  the  colouring  and  accompani- 
ments which  his  art  can  lend.  From  their  very 
nature,  characters  and  events  susceptible  of  this 
treatment  must  be  rare;  and  the  student  of  history 
who  wishes  to  enlarge  his  heart,  and  extend  his 
compass  of  thought,  as  well  as  to  store  his  mem- 
ory with  facts,  may  justly  regret  their  being  so.  A 
historical  personage,  depicted  in  the  colours  of 
poetry,  is  like  a  bright  sun-spot  in  the  grey  cold 
twilight  of  ordinary  narrative.  Richard  and  Wal- 
lenstein  are  no  longer  the  thin  shadows  they  appear- 
ed to  us,  in  the  mirror  of  Holinshed  and  Harte ;  they 
are  living  men,  with  all  their  attributes,  whom  we 
almost  seem  to  know  personally;  and  the  new  in- 
terest v/e  take  in  them  is  extended  to  the  whole 
groups  in  which  they  mingle.  No  one  can  read 
the  meagerest  chronicle  of  our  old  French  wars, 
without  finding  a  warmer  glow  spread  over  all  the 
scene,  a  more  intimate  presence  in  it,  communica- 
ted from  the  plays  of  Shakespeare.  In  Henry's 
army  we  discover  v/ellknov/n  faces;  the  king  and 
his  valiant  captains,  even  the  ancient  Pistol  and 
Bardolph,  "a  soldier  firm  of  heart,"  are  all  dear  to 
our  memories.  We  follow  the  progress  of  the  host, 
as  it  were  with  our  eyes;  and  hear  the  armourers 

26 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

give  "dreadful  note  of  preparation,"  every  time  the 
victory  of  Agincourt  is  mentioned  to  us.  Nor  is 
the  increased  animation  which  this  particular  spe- 
cies of  poetry  diffuses  over  the  most  striking  pas- 
sages of  history,  the  only,  or  even  the  principal  ad- 
vantage we  derive  from  it.  Besides  ministering  to 
our  pleasure,  it  contributes  to  our  improvement. 
If  history  is  valuable,  chiefly  as  it  offers  examples 
by  which  human  nature  is  illustrated,  and  human 
conduct  may  be  regulated,  then  it  is  of  the  highest 
importance  that  such  great  characters  as  have  in- 
fluenced the  destinies  of  men,  be  held  up  to  us  in 
the  degree  of  light  that  shall  most  powerfully  elicit 
the  generous  expansion  of  soul,  which  a  view  of 
them  is  fitted  to  inspire.  We  cannot  feel  too 
strongly  the  admiration  of  highly-gifted  virtue,  or 
the  fear  of  highly-gifted  wickedness;  and  if  poetry 
profess  to  occupy  a  more  exalted  rank  in  the  scale 
of  our  pursuits  than  that  of  being  merely  an  ele- 
gant amusement,  —  if  it  profess  to  elevate  our 
nature  by  giving  scope  to  its  higher  qualities,  and 
communicating  new  beauty  to  the  ordinary  things 
around  us, — we  do  not  see  how  it  can  better  vin- 
dicate such  claims,  than  by  adorning  the  memory 
of  those  our  illustrious  brethren  who  have  journey- 
ed through  life  in  might  and  recitude  before  us. 
Every  time  the  poet  can  seize  the  impress  of  such 
a  character,  and  transmit  it  warm  to  our  bosoms, 
he  performs  not  only  the  most  delightful  but  the 
most  beneficial  function  of  his  art.  He  rescues 
from  obscurity  or  neglect  a  token  of  the  dignity  of 

27 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

man;  and  thus  presenting  another  high  example, 
to  which  we  may  appeal  in  the  day  of  trial,  he 
enriches  and  exalts  the  moral  treasury  of  our  race. 
With  regard  to  the  illustrious  wicked,  poetical 
representation  is  profitable  in  this  way  likewise. 
The  spectacle  of  mental  power  tends  to  enlarge 
the  mind  of  him  who  beholds  it ;  and  what  is  more, 
the  penalties  attached  to  its  misemployment  the 
"compunctious  visitings"  of  conscience,  or  its  still 
more  frightful  insensibility,  form  a  lesson  of  awful 
import,  which  it  is  fit  that  all  of  us  should  study. 
"When  a  poet  converts  our  admiration  of  greatness 
into  admiration  of  the  crimes  it  is  employed  to 
effect,  he  does  not  use,  but  abuse  his  authority 
over  us,  and  our  feelings  refuse  to  obey  him.  True 
poetry  will  have  another  aim.  Filippo  and  Mac- 
beth are  not  less  instructive  than  Brutus  or  Virgin- 
ius.  If  this  reasoning  be  correct,  the  increase  of 
pleasure  and  profit,  derived  from  this  species  of 
poetry,  must  appear  to  be  great  and  indubitable.  At 
the  same  time,  however,  like  every  earthly  good,  it 
is  mixed  with  some  alloy.  The  poet  cannot  secure 
to  us  those  advantages,  without  invading  and  appar- 
ently violating  the  province  of  the  historian  and  bi- 
ographer. Poetryandhistoryhave  long  been  at  issue 
on  this  matter.  There  is  a  kind  of  debatable  ground 
between  them,  the  limits  of  which  are  nothing  like 
ascertained,  and  where  each  lays  claim  to  the  right 
of  dominion.  On  one  hand,  the  sticklers  for  ac- 
curacy allege,  that,  by  distorting  the  events,  and  ex- 
aggerating the  characters  of  former  ages,  the  face 

28 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

of  history  becomes  disfigured  in  the  imaginations 
of  men;  and  erroneous  notions  thus  silently  propa- 
gated, must  inevitably,  though  imperceptibly,  viti- 
ate the  conclusions  and  inferences  to  be  deduced 
from  the  real  course  of  things,  which  has  now  been 
displaced  in  a  great  measure  from  our  thoughts, 
to  make  room  for  a  series  more  splendid,  invented 
by  the  poet  for  a  purpose  altogether  foreign. 

On  the  other  hand  are  set  forth  the  manifold  ad- 
vantages enumerated  above,  and  the  narrow  com- 
pass to  which  the  injury  complained  of  is  limited. 
The  poet,  it  is  said,  will  never  violate  the  truth  of 
history  to  any  important  extent,  as  he  is  in  general 
sufficiently  restrained  by  considerations  affecting 
his  own  pursuits  alone.  He  knows  well  enough 
that  no  subject  over  which  the  full  daylight  of  his- 
tory has  once  been  shed,  and  which  has  thus  be- 
come familiar  in  all  its  details,  and  settled  in  the 
public  mind,  can  by  any  management  be  rendered 
a  fit  subject  for  poetry.  His  efforts  will,  therefore, 
be  chiefly  directed  to  the  more  obscure  and  re- 
mote departments  of  history,  concernin  wghich 
little  can  be  known,  or  at  least  is  known,  to  con- 
tradict his  statements;  and  in  those  distant  scenes, 
if  he  find  a  few  facts  applicable  to  his  purpose, 
why,  it  is  asked,  should  he  not  be  permitted,  nay 
invited,  to  seize  them  ?  For  the  great  characters 
there  dimly  shadowed  forth,  he  becomes  a  kind  of 
new  creator.  The  faint  traces  they  have  left  re- 
main uninterpreted  and  barren  in  the  eyes  of  the 
chronicler :  to  the  poet's  eye  they  are  like  the  frag- 

29 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

ments  of  an  antediluvian  animal,  as  contemplated 
by  the  mind  of  a  Cuvier — dark  to  others  and  void 
of  meaning,  but  discovering  to  his  experienced  sa- 
gacity, the  form  and  habits  of  a  species  long  ex- 
tinct. And  if,  by  a  similar  power,  the  plastic  and 
far-sighted  genius  of  a  poet,  can,  from  those  slen- 
der hints,  detect  the  structure  and  essence  of  the 
sublime  character  to  whom  they  relate,  why  should 
he  not  disclose  it,  and  thus  offer  to  us  a  mass  of  ex- 
alted thoughts  and  noble  feehngs,  which,  but  for 
such  a  power,  we  should  never  have  recovered 
from  the  darkness  that  buried  them  ?  Let  the  poet, 
then,  say  his  admirers,  take  what  liberty  he  pleases 
with  history.  For  his  own  sake,  he  will  avoid  falsi- 
fying the  characters  and  transactions  recorded 
there,  to  any  fatal  degree;  because  long  before  it 
prove  hurtful  to  the  moral  judgements  of  his  audi- 
ence, this  proceeding  will  prove  still  more  hurtful 
to  the  effect  of  his  poetry,  which  will  in  vain  solicit 
favour  from  minds  that  are  revolted  by  an  open 
contradiction  of  what  they  know  to  be  true. 

We  do  not  pretend  to  settle  this  controversy;  but 
we  cannot  help  observing,  that  the  advocates  for 
history  seem  to  overrate  their  claim  of  damages. 
No  one,  it  is  certain,  is  likely  to  recur  to  the  pages 
of  a  drama  or  an  epic  for  settling  a  date  or  a  dis- 
puted fact;  and  for  all  moral  purposes,  the  poetical 
selection  of  circumstances  may  convey  as  faithful 
an  idea  of  the  subject  treated,  as  the  historical 
narrative  in  which  every  circumstance  is  minutely 
detailed.    The  truth  of  historical  characters  is  in- 

30 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

deed  a  more  grave  consideration;  but  the  force  and 
vividness  of  the  delineation  are  also  an  important 
particular,  and  the  omission  of  some  circumstances 
which  enfeeble  the  general  result,  rather  than 
change  its  nature,  has  as  many  advantages,  and 
gives  such  a  powerful  engine  for  poetry  to  impress 
us  with,  at  once  delightfully  and  beneficially,  that 
considerable  latitude  ought  to  be  allowed  even 
here.  Miss  Baillie  is  aware  of  those  conflicting 
rights,  and  is  puzzled,  like  ourselves,  how  to  recon- 
cile them.  Admitting  that  history  is  too  indistinct, 
and  biography  too  minute  and  familiar  to  call  forth 
"that  rousing  and  generous  admiration  which  the 
"more  simple  and  distant  view  of  heroic  worth  is 
"fitted  to  inspire;"  she  conceives  that  romance  in 
verse  or  prose,  "by  throwing  over  the  venerated 
"form  of  a  majestic  man,  a  gauzy  veil,  on  which  is 
"delineated  the  fanciful  form  of  an  angel,"  is  no 
less  injurious  than  unfaithful  to  the  memory  of  the 
mighty  dead.    She  proceeds, 

"Having  this  view  of  the  subject  in  my  mind, 
and  a  great  desire,  notwithstanding,  to  pay  some 
tribute  to  the  memory  of  a  few  characters  for 
whom  I  felt  a  peculiar  admiration  and  respect,  I 
have  ventured  upon  what  may  be  considered,  in 
some  degree,  as  a  new  attempt, — to  give  a  short 
descriptive  chronicle  of  those  noble  beings,  whose 
existence  has  honoured  human  nature  and  bene- 
fitted mankind. 

"In  relating  a  true  story,  though  we  do  not  add 
any  events  or  material  circumstances  to  it,  and 

31 


METRICAL    LEGENDS  OF 

abstain  from  attributing  any  motives  for  action 
which  have  not  been  credibly  reported,  or  may  not 
be  fairly  inferred,  yet,  how  often  do  we  spontan- 
eously, almost  unwittingly,  add  description  similar 
to  what  we  know  must  have  belonged  to  the 
actors  and  scenery  of  our  story? 

"In  imitation  then  of  this  human  propensity, 
from  which  we  derive  so  much  pleasure,  though 
mischievous,  when  not  indulged  with  charity  and 
moderation  I  have  written  the  following  metrical 
legends,  describing  such  scenes  as  truly  belong  to 
my  story,  with  occasionally  the  feelings,  figures, 
and  gestures  of  those  whose  actions  they  relate, 
and  also  assigning  their  motives  of  action,  as  they 
may  naturally  be  supposed  to  have  existed. 

"The  events  they  record  are  taken  from  sources 
sufficiently  authentic;  and  where  anything  has 
been  reasonably  questioned,  I  give  some  notice  of 
the  doubt.  I  have  endeavored  to  give  them  with 
the  brief  simplicity  of  a  chronicle,  though  frequent- 
ly stopping  in  my  course,  where  occasion  for  re- 
flection or  remark  naturally  offered  itself,  or  pro- 
ceeding more  slowly,  when  objects  capable  of 
interesting  or  pleasing  description  tempted  me  to 
linger.  Though  my  great  desire  has  been  to  dis- 
play such  portraitures  of  real  worth  and  noble  her- 
oism as  might  awaken  high  and  generous  feelings 
in  a  youthful  mind;  yet  I  have  not,  as  far  as  I  know, 
imputed  to  my  heroes  motives  or  sentiments  be- 
yond what  their  noble  deeds  do  fairly  warrant.  I 
have  made  each  legend  short  enough  to  be  read 

32 


EXALTED    CHARACTERS 

in  one  moderate  sitting,  that  the  impression  might 
be  undivided,  and  that  the  weariness  of  a  story, 
not  varied  or  enriched  by  minuter  circumstances, 
might  be,  if  possible,  avoided.  It  has,  in  short, 
been  my  aim  to  produce  sentimental  and  descrip- 
tive memorials  of  exahed  worth." 

The  disadvantages  of  this  plan  are  too  obvious 
to  require  much  discussion.    A  versified  chronicle, 
confined  within  the  rigid  limits  of  historical  truth, 
is  evidently  one  of  the  most  unpoetical  things  in 
nature.    And  although  the  degree  of  licence  which 
forms  the  discriminating  feature  of  these  metrical 
legends  may  admit  to  introducing  much  fine  de- 
scription, both  of  scenery  and  feeling,  yet  for  the 
main  purpose,  that  of  exhibiting  a  great  character 
in   glowing   colours,  and   impressing   us  with   it 
strongly,  few  things   could   be  worse   calculated 
than  this  new  species  of  poem.    With  heroic  char- 
acters, especially,  we  think  it  would   fail  in  the 
very  best   hands;  and  with   any  character,  it  is 
plainly  impossible  that  it  should  ever  become  the 
vehicle  of  high   poety.     It   leaves   no   room    for 
invention,  little  for  imagination,  except  of  a  low 
kind,  partly  allowed  even  in  prose:  there  can  be  no 
unity  of  action,  for  no  man's  life  was  ever  in  whole 
directed  to  a  single  object;  hence  no  unity  of  in- 
terest, no  unity  of  result.     These  disadvantages 
are  palpable  enough.    What  compensation  do  we 
get  for  them?    If  the  truth  of  the  narrative  be  all 
our  compensation,  it  is  a  very  poor  one.    Granting 
the  narrative  to  be  true  in  every  particular — we 

33 


V^ 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

ask,  of  what  avail  is  it?  We  did  not  take  it  up  for 
historical  information,  but  to  obtain  a  sublime 
view  of  mental  greatness.  The  fact  of  a  hero's 
life  are  worth  nothing  to  us  except  as  they  repre- 
sent the  powers  of  his  mind;  and  so  the  latter  be 
displayed  with  the  greatest  truth  and  effect,  the 
former  may  be  as  they  will.  Does  Miss  Baillie 
think  a  straggling  narrative  of  a  man's  whole  life 
and  conversation  the  best  mode  of  presenting  an 
intense  and  faithful  view  of  his  character?  We  im- 
agine, on  the  contrary,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
prove,  that,  for  exhibiting  the  character  in  all  its 
truth  and  completeness,  it  must  frequently  be  ad- 
visable to  alter,  always  more  than  advisable  to 
concentrate,  the  events  which  have  displayed  it. 
We  say  truth,  and  we  meant  to  use  the  term  in  its 
highest  sense.  The  actions  of  a  man  are  never 
more  than  a  feeble  and  imperfect  emblem  of  what 
is  passing  within.  To  a  common  mind  they  dis- 
play little  of  the  unseen  movements  which  a 
sympathising  mind  infers  from  their  presence;  and 
to  any  mind  they  offer  but  a  faint  copy  of  the  re- 
ality. Besides,  they  disclose  the  various  mental 
features  only  in  succession,  and  the  trace  left  by 
one  event  is  apt  to  be  erased  before  that  of  anoth- 
er is  communicated.  Hence,  to  give  a  true  picture 
of  any  character,  particularly  a  great  character, 
true,  we  mean,  both  in  its  proportions  and  'vi'vid^ 
I  ness  it  must  often  be  requisite  to  forsake  the 
straightforward  track  of  narrative,  to  accumulate, 
either  secretly,  as  historians  do  in  forming  their 

34 


/ 


EXALTED  CHARACTERS 

judgment,  or  avowedly,  as  poets  do  in  presenting 
theirs,  and  combine  the  several  impressions  which 
the  story  has  produced  upon  us, — uniting  them 
in  their  proper  situation  and  relative  strength  to 
establish  the  true  proportion,  and  accompanying 
them  with  all  the  influence  of  poetry  to  impart 
the  true  degree  of  vividness.  Now,  a  "metrical 
legend,"  if  it  adhere  to  the  actual  series  of  events 
as  they  occurred,  and  reject  all  but  the  slenderest 
embellishments  of  fancy,  can  never  effect  this. 
Without  immense  means,  it  will  effect  nothing. 
To  give  us  even  an  approximate  likeness  of  a  great 
man,  so  feeble  an  implement  would  need  to  be 
wielded  by  an  artist  no  way  inferior  to  Shakes- 
peare himself.  The  poet  must  be  able,  not  merely 
to  understand  the  character  he  is  delineating,  but 
to  enter  into  it  even  to  the  minutest  ramifications; 
not  merely  to  estimate  his  hero,  but  to  transfuse  his  \ 
whole  being  into  him — to  see  with  his  hero's  eyes, 
and  feel  with  his  hero's  heart.  But  Miss  Baillie's 
talent,  we  have  already  said,  does  not  lie  here. 
She  does  not  conceive  a  deep  agitated  nature  very 
fully,  or  embody  her  conceptions  of  it  very  hap- 
pily; and  her  success,  partial  as  it  is,  in  this  respect, 
depends  more  on  the  display  of  incidents  than  of  \ 
emotions.  Her  present  system,  however,  prohibits 
not  only  the  invention  of  new  incidents,  but  even 
the  new  arrangement  of  such  as  are  prescribed; 
and  she  is  thus  left  to  overcome  the  difficulties  of 
her  undertaking  — great  and  many  in  other  re- 
spects—by a  resource,  in  the  management  of  which 

35 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

she  has  never  shewn  much  power,  by  delineating 
internal  feeling  without  the  external  movement 
which  bespeaks  it.  The  result  is  such  as  might  have 
been  expected.  On  a  first  perusal,  her  "Metrical 
Legends"  of  exalted  characters,  disappoint  us  ex- 
tremely. They  give  us  next  to  no  idea  at  all  of 
the  heroes  whose  characters  it  is  their  purpose  to 
celebrate;  and  v/e  throw  down  the  book  in  a  state 
of  irritated  ennui,  declaring  it  to  be  tedious  and  pro- 
saic beyond  endurance.  On  a  second  perusal,  it  is 
true,  we  are  again  disappointed;  we  now  discover 
much  beautiful  and  spirited  poetry  sprinkled  over 
its  barren  groundwork;  but  still  we  cannot  avoid 
feeling,  that  the  main  design  of  the  performance 
has  failed,  and  the  great  powers,  we  see  misdirect- 
ed to  accomplish  it,  are  calculated  to  make  us 
judge  of  it  more  harshly. 

The  first  legend  in  the  volume  turns  upon  the 
history  of  William  Wallace,  a  name  dear  to  every 
lover  of  freedom,  and  amply  meriting  all  the  celeb- 
rity which  poetry  can  give  it.  The  fate  of  Wal- 
lace has  been  singularly  hard,  both  in  life  and  after 
it.  The  deliverers  of  Switzerland,  Tell  and  Stauf- 
facher,  and  all  the  rest,  have  had  their  deeds  re- 
corded in  the  annals  of  their  Country — gratefully 
dwelt  upon  by  historians  of  other  countries,  and  it 
last  depicted  on  the  imperishable  canvass,  of  Schil- 
ler. But  in  the  very  period  when  the  tyranny  of 
Gessler  had  called  forth  the  spirit  that  slumbered 
in  the  mountain  peasants,  as  stern  a  spirit  was 
roused,  by  a  far  more  formidable  tyrant,  as  fierce  a 

36 


EXALTED  CHARACTERS 

contest  was  waging  among  our  own  bleak  hills, 
and  the  patriot  that  guided  it  had  an  arm  as  strong, 
a  heart  as  firm,  as  the  time  required.  Now  mark 
the  difference!  Tell  died  beside  his  own  hearth, 
amid  affectionate  grandchildren;  a  people  blessed 
him,  ides  Vaterlandes  Shutz  und  Erreiter);  and  a 
poet,  fitted  to  appreciate  and  fathom  his  manly  soul, 
has  embalmed  the  memory  of  its  worth  forever: 
while  Wallace,  as  unblemished  after  greater  trials, 
insulted  and  betrayed,  but  never  yielding,  perished 
on  the  scaffold  far  from  his  native  land,  and  before 
the  freedom  he  had  bought  for  it,  was  achieved, 
leaving  his  fame  to  the  charge  of  a  vulgar  rhymer. 
Nor  since  the  days  of  Blind  Harry  has  the  case 
been  mended.  Wallace,  slightly  mentioned  by  his- 
torians, though  the  author  of  a  mighty  revolution 
in  his  country,  has  become  the  prey  of  novelists 
and  poetasters.  They  have  made  him  into  a  sen- 
timental philosopher,  a  v/oe-begone  lover,  a  mere 
"carpet  knight."  Nay,  Metastasio  has  not  scrupled 
to  trick  him  out  into  a  "metre  ballad-monger:" 
and  Valla  (for  the  very  name  is  lost),  trills  forth 
his  patriotism  and  his  gallantry  in  many  a  quaver, 
as  an  opera-hero  ought,  but  resembling  our  own 
rugged,  massy,  stern,  indomitable  Wallace  wight, 
just  about  as  much  as  Vauxchall  tin-cascade  re- 
sembles the  falls  of  Niagara.  We  wish  all  this  were 
remedied.  Why  does  not  the  author  of  Waverly 
bestir  himself?  He  has  done  a  faithful  duty  to  the 
Cavaliers  and  Covenanters:  a  higher  name  than 
any  of  them  is  still  behind.  The  Wizard,  if  he  liked, 

37 


V3  y^  -^^ 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

could  image  back  to  us  the  very  form  and  pressure 
of  those  far  off  times,  the  very  life  and  substance 
of  the  strong  and  busy  spirits  that  adorned  them. 
It  would  be  glorious  to  behold  all  this  in  his  magic 
glass  and  then  to  say,  "It  is  all  our  own — and  the 
magician  too  is  ours." 

The  task,  which  we  have  thus  presumed  to  rec- 
ommend to  the  Great  Novelist,  and  which,  in  spite 
of  all  its  obstacles,  we  seriously  wish  he  would  un- 
dertake, has  not  in  any  measure  been  forestalled 
by  this  attempt  of  Miss  Baillie's.  Her  Wallace  is 
a  lamentable  failure.  His  exploits  are  related  cer- 
tainly in  clear  language,  and  not  without  gleams  of 
poetic  imagery  here  and  there,  such  as  the  unhap- 
py nature  of  the  plan  allowed;  but  those  exploits 
have  no  union  among  themselves;  they  are  isolat- 
ed, and  point  different  ways;  they  do  not  combine 
to  bring  out  or  to  strengthen  one  great  effect,  and 
Wallace  remains  as  much  unknown  to  us  as  before. 
We  have,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  ghost  of  him  here. 
He  moves  about  the  country — sets  fire  to  the  barns 
of  Ayr — fights  at  Stirling— offers  to  fight  at  Stan- 
more — refuses  at  Falkirk — overcomes  the  Red 
Reaver — is  betrayed,  and  dies  very  edifyingly. 
Now,  all  this  is  excellent,  but  nothing  to  the  point 
in  view:  the  hero  has  still  no  individuality  about 
him;  his  features  are  invisible;  and  if  we  try  to 
grasp  him,  he  proves  to  be  an  empty  shade.  We 
are  told,  frequently  and  emphatically,  that  Wallace 
is  a  very  strong  person,  expert  at  the  broadsword, 
and  a  great  patriot;  with  many  other  things  which 

38 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

we  knew  somewhat  before,  and  do  not  yet  know 
better,  or  see  more  clearly;  but  the  stern  spirit  of 
the  man,  with  all  its  fervid  movements,  the  fiery  ^ 
joy  of  victory,  the  stubborn  resolution  of  defeat, 
the  grandeur  of  purpose,  the  unconquerable  will, 
his  whole  heroic  nature,  are  wanting.  We  see 
none  of  those  living  energies  that  nerved  him  for 
his  task;  none  of  the  great  thoughts  and  great  de- 
sires, the  overshadowings  of  despondency,  the  vis- 
ions of  generous  hope,  that  chequered  and  sublimed 
his  restless  existence.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
how  Mrs  Wallace  could  have  freed  his  country,  or 
risen  to  command  its  armies:  he  shews  no  powers 
of  such  a  kind,  few  powers  of  any  kind,  except 
mere  physical  strength;— his  actions  are  recorded 
in  free  and  expressive  language;  but  his  character 
is  left  to  our  own  inferences, — that  is  to  say,  just 
where  it  was. 

We  regret  that  Miss  Baillie  should  have  attempt- 
ed the  depicting  of  Wallace ;  but  above  all,  that  she 
should  have  attempted  it  on  such  a  plan.  If  deliv- 
ered from  the  invincible  obstructions  thus  volun- 
tarily created,  though  perhaps  she  could  not  have 
given  us  Wallace  in  his  full  majesty,  she  would  at 
least  have  given  us  some  visible  and  pleasing  out- 
line of  him.  Her  verses,  though  unequal,  are  by  no 
means  destitute  of  beauty.  It  is  only  on  contrast- 
ing what  is  done  with  what  is  aimed  at,  that  they 
become  disagreeable.  The  poem  contains  many 
brilliant  similies  and  fine  allusions,  it  has  few  faults 
except  deficiencies;  and,  though  these  are  numer- 

39 


METRICAL  LEGENDS   OF 

ous,  we  frequently  discover  the  free  step  and  blithe 
face  of  Miss  Baillie's  early  muse.  If  we  wished  to 
shew  this  "legend"  to  be  very  tame  and  feeble  in 
many  places,  we  should  have  no  difficult  task.  It 
were  easy  to  produce  not  a  few  stanzas  of  metred 
prose;  we  could  even  point  out  half  a  page,  in 
which  there  is  literally  nothing  but  names,  and 
names  so  unmusical,  that  prose  itself  would  have 
paused  before  admitting  them.  But  though  not  a 
difficuh,  it  would  be  grating  task;  and  the  reader 
will  obtain  a  more  agreeable,  and  a  far  juster  no- 
tion of  the  general  style  and  merits  of  the  poem 
from  such  an  extract  as  the  following. 
It  is  the  proemium. 

"Insensible  to  high  heroic  deeds, 
Is  there  a  spirit  clothed  in  mortal  weeds, 

Who  at  the  patriot's  moving  story 

Devoted  to  his  country's  good. 

Devoted  to  his  country's  glory, 
Shedding  for  freemen's  rights  his  generous  blood; — 

List'neth  not  with  breath  heaved  high, 

Quiv'ring  nerve,  and  glistening  eye. 
Feeling  within  a  spark  of  heavenly  flame, 
That  with  the  hero's  worth  may  humble  kindred  claim  ? 
If  such  there  be,  still  let  him  plod 

On  the  dull  foggy  paths  of  care, 
Nor  raise  his  eyes  from  the  dank  sod 
To  view  creation  fair : 

What  boots  to  him  the  wond'rous  works  of  God  ? 
His  soul  with  brutal  things  has  ta'en  its  earthly  lair. 

Come,  youths,  whose  eyes  are  forward  cast, — 

And  in  the  future  see  the  past, — 
The  past,  as  winnow'd  in  the  early  mind 

With  husk  and  prickle  left  behind  ! 

Come;  whether  under  lowland  vest. 

Or  by  the  mountain  tartan  prest, 
40 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

Your  gen'rous  bosoms  heave; 

Pausing  a  while  in  thoughtful  rest, 
My  legend  lay  receive. 

Come,  aged  sires,  who  love  to  tell 
What  fields  were  fought,  what  deeds  were  done; 

What  things  in  olden  times  befell, — 
Those  good  old  times,  whose  term  is  run  ! 

Come  ye,  whose  manly  strength  with  pride 

Is  breasting  now  the  present  tide 

Of  worldly  strife,  and  cast  aside 

A  hasty  glance  at  what  hath  been! 

Come,  courtly  dames,  in  silken  sheen. 
And  ye,  who  under  thatched  roofs  abide; 
Yea,  ev'n  the  barefoot  child  by  cottage  fire, 
Who  doth  some  shreds  of  northern  lore  acquire. 

By  the  stirr'd  embers'  scanty  light, — 

List  to  my  legend  lay  of  Wallace  wight." 

This  we  conceive  to  be  at  least  an  average  speci- 
men of  the  work.  If  it  contains  fewer  beautiful 
strokes  than  some  other  passages — the  battle  of 
Stirling,  for  example— it  contains  none  of  their  fall- 
ingsoff ;  and  it  gives  no  idea  of  the  languor  and  dis- 
appointment resulting  from  the  whole  narrative, 
and  inseparable  from  the  principles  on  which  it  is 
conducted.  To  shew  what  we  might  have  had  on 
other  principles,  we  need  only  appeal  to  the  fine 
sketch  which  follows  — excepting,  of  course,  the 
two  first  stanzas.  Wallace  is  hastening  to  meet 
the  English  chiefs  assembled  in  court  at  Ayr, — ac- 
cording to  the  plausible  but  insidious  invitation 
which  had  been  sent  to  all  the  neighboring  barons. 
The  bridle  of  his  horse  is  laid  hold  of  by  a  friendly 
hand — 

"  '  Oh  I  go  not  to  the  barns  of  Ayr ! 
'Kindred  and  friends  arc  murder'd  there. 
41 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF 

'The  faithless  Southrons,  one  by  one, 
'On  them  the  hangman's  task  hath  [have]  done. 
'Oh,  turn  thy  steed,  and  fearful  ruin  shun!' 
He,  shudd'ring,  heard,  with  visage  pale. 
Which  quickly  chang'd  to  wrath's  terrific  hue; 
And  then  apace  came  sorrow's  bursting  wail; 
The  noble  heart  could  weep  that  could  not  quail, 

'My  friends,  my  kinsmen,  war-mates  bold  and  true! 
Met  ye  a  villain's  end  !  Oh  is  it  so  with  you  ! ' 

The  hero  turn'd  his  chafing  steed. 

And  to  the  wild  woods  bent  his  speed. 

But  not  to  keep  in  hiding  there. 

Or  give  his  sorrow  to  despair, 

For  the  firce  tumult  in  his  breast 

To  speedy,  dreadfuf  action  press'd. 

And  there  within  a  tangled  glade, 

List'ning  the  courser's  coming  tread, 

With  hearts  that  shared  his  ire  and  grief, 

A  faithful  band  receiv'd  their  chief. 
In  Ayr  the  guilty  Southrons  held  a  feast. 

When  that  dire  day  its  fearful  course  had  run, 
And  laid  them  down  their  weary  limbs  to  rest 
Where  the  foul  deed  was  done. 

But  ere  beneath  the  cottage  thatch 

Cocks  had  crow'd  the  second  watch ; 

When  sleepers  breathe  in  heavy  plight, 

Press'd  with  the  visions  of  the  night. 

And  spirits,  from  unhallow'd  ground. 

Ascend  to  walk  their  silent  round  : 

When  trembles  dell  or  desert  heath, 

The  witches'  orgy  dance  beneath, — 

To  the  rous'd  warders  fearful  gaze. 

The  Barns  of  Ayr  were  in  a  blaze. 

The  dense  dun  smoke  was  mounting  slow 
And  stately,  from  the  flaming  wreck  below, 
And  mantling  far  aloft  in  many  a  volum'd  wreath; 
Whilst  town  and  woods,  and  ocean  wide  did  lye, 
Tinctur'd  like  glowing  furnace-iron  beneath 
Its  awful  canopy. 
42 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

Red  mazy  sparks  soon  with  the  dense  smoke  blended, 

And  far  around  like  fiery  sleet  descended. 

From  the  scorch'd  and  cracking  pile 

Fierce  burst  the  glowing  flames  the  while; 

Thro'  creviced  wall  and  buttress  strong, 

Sweeping  the  rafter'd  roofs  along; 

Which,  as  with  sudden  crash  they  fell. 

Their  raging  fierceness  seem'd  to  quell, 

And  for  a  passing  instant  spread 

O'er  land  and  sea  a  lurid  shade; 

Then  with  increasing  brightness,  high 

In  spiral  form,  shot  to  the  sky 

With  momentary  height  so  grand, 

That  chill'd  beholders  breathless  stand 

Thus  rose  and  fell  the  flaming  surgy  flood, 

'Till  fencing  around  the  gulphy  light. 

Black,  jagg'd  and  bare,  a  fearful  sight  ! 

Like  ruin  grim  of  former  days. 

Seen  'thwart  the  broad  sun's  setting  rays, 

The  guilty  fabric  stood. 
And  dreadful  are  the  deaths,  I  ween, 
Which  midst  that  fearful  wreck  have  been. 
The  pike  and  sword,  and  smoke  and  fire. 
Have  minister'd  to  vengeful  ire. 

New-wak'd  wretches  stood  aghast 
To  see  the  fire-flood  in  their  rear 
Close  to  their  breast  the  pointed  spear, 

And  in  wild  horror  yell'd  their  last. 
But  what  dark  figures  now  emerge 
From  the  dread  gulf  and  cross  the  light. 

Appearing  on  its  fearful  verge, 
Each  like  an  armed  sprite? 

Whilst  one  above  the  rest  doth  tower, — 

A  form  of  stern  gigantic  power, 

Whirling  from  his  lofty  stand 

The  smold'ring  stone  or  burning  brand? 
Those  are  the  leagued  for  Scotland's  native  right, 
Whose  clashing  arms  rang  Southrons  knell. 
When  to  their  fearful  work  they  fell, — 
That  form  is  Wallace  wight." 

43 


METRICAL  LEGENDS    OF 

The  beauties  of  this  description,  at  once  so 
chaste  and  so  expressive,  are  sufficient  to  remind 
us  that  much  of  what  is  feeble  and  faulty  in  the 
execution  of  this  poem,  is  to  be  ascribed  to  errors 
in  the  original  design,  which  no  powers,  however 
great,  could  have  entirely  surmounted.  In  the  life 
of  Wallace,  those  original  defects  are  more  than 
usually  sensible.  In  that  of  Christopher  Columbus, 
the  subject  of  our  second  "Legend,"  they  are  less 
so;  the  scenes  to  be  pourtrayed  are  more  vast  and 
striking:  the  events  to  be  recorded  are  more  nu- 
merous; they  follow  in  quicker  succession,  have 
more  of  a  consentaneous  character,  and  bear  more 
upon  a  single  object.  In  this  piece,  accordingly, 
our  disappointment  has  been  smaller.  It  is  impos- 
sible, indeed,  for  any  one  to  write  a  history  of 
Columbus,  how  imperfectly  soever,  without  inter- 
mingling something  of  poetry  with  his  narrative. 
The  character  of  Columbus,  so  richly  furnished 
with  intellectual  and  moral  endowments,  his  fate, 
and  the  great  things  he  accomplished,  are  of  them- 
selves poetical.  To  view  him,  after  long  years  of 
anxious  waiting,  at  length  embarked  with  his  slen- 
der crew, — alone  with  them  upon  the  wide  and 
wasteful  deep,  which  no  keel  had  ever  ploughed, 
no  human  eyes  had  ever  seen  before;  yet  bearing 
fearlessly  on,  destined  to  discover  a  new  world,  to 
found  new  empires,  and  to  change  the  fate  of  the 
old,— might  strike  some  sparks  of  feeling  from  the 
very  dullest  heart. 

With  such  advantages  inherent  in  its  subject,  the 

44 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

"Legend  of  Columbus"  is  calculated  to  afford 
considerable  pleasure.  It  contains  some  poetical 
sentiment  and  thought,  with  much  poetical  de- 
scription; the  story  proceeds  less  tediously/  is 
less  broken  into  fragments;  and  the  sinkings  into 
prose  are  less  frequent  and  alarming.  Yet  the 
innate  perversity  of  Miss  Baillie's  plan— which  the 
weak  points  of  her  genius  tend  to  aggravate,  are 
but  too  apparent  here  also.  Nearly  all  that  is 
historical  is  prosaic:  we  have  nothing  of  Columbus 
but  what  is  external;  no  strong  impression  of  the 
enthusiastic  heart  and  warm  imagination,  that 
supported  him  so  long  and  so  bravely.  If  we 
wished  to  get, — we  do  not  say  a  true  idea,  but  any 
idea — of  his  character,  it  is  not  to  this  "metrical 
legend"  that  we  should  have  recourse.  Robert- 
son's prose  would  answer  the  purpose  infinitely 

•  It  may  seem  inconsistent  in  us  to  complain  of  omissions  in 
the  narrative.  In  fact,  we  wish  they  had  been  much  more  numer- 
ous: but  we  see  no  reason  why,  in  such  a  professed  account  of 
Columbus's  achievements  and  sufferings,  the  last  and  greatest  of 
his  sufferings,  the  year  of  bitterness  which  he  spent  in  Jamaica, 
after  the  loss  of  his  ships,  (1504,)  should  not  be  mentioned  at  all, — 
or  what  is  worse,  mentioned  so  as  to  convey  a  totally  false  im- 
pression of  it.  Miss  Baillie  notices  the  prediction  of  the  eclipse  ; 
but  she  does  not  notice  the  ultimate  hostility  of  the  Indians,  the 
mutinies  of  the  Spaniards,  and  the  savage  conduct  of  the  governor 
of  St.  Domingo,  who  not  only  refused  to  give  any  assistance  of 
ships  or  provisions,  but  accompanied  his  refusal  with  inhuman 
mockery.  The  fatigue,  the  famine,  and  the  horrors  of  this  year 
quite  broke  the  constitution,  and  broke  the  heart  of  Columbus, 
who  died  soon  after.  A  letter  expressive  of  extreme  agony,  and 
said  to  have  been  written  by  him  here,  may  be  seen  in  Edwards' 
History  of  the   West  Indies,  Vol.  I. 

45 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

better.  And  we  do  not  think  there  can  be  a  more 
convincing  proof  of  this  system  being  radically 
bad,  than  the  fact — of  which  an  experiment  will 
satisfy  anyone — that  Columbus's  character,  extra- 
ordinary in  every  sense,  and  full  of  the  elements 
of  poetry  as  it  is,  scarcely  appears  at  all  in  the 
reader's  imagination,  and  is  never  the  primary 
object  there.  The  narrative  is  not,  however,  void 
of  beauties:  and  the  life  of  Columbus,  though 
itself  unheeded,  or  at  least  unpoetical,  is  made  the 
platform  on  which  some  true  poetry  is  built.  The 
following  thought  is  just,  and  not  ill  stated,  though 
the  soul  of  imagination  is  a  new  entity. 

But  hath  there  lived  of  mortal  mould 
Whose  fortunes  with  his  thoughts  could  hold 
An  even  race  ?  Earth's  greatest  son 
That  e'er  earned  fame,  or  empire  won, 
Hath  but  fulfill'd,  within  a  narrow  scope, 
A  stinted  portion  of  his  ample  hope. 

With  heavy  sigh  and  look  dcpress'd. 

The  greatest  men  will  some-times  hear 
The  story  of  their  acts  address'd 

To  the  young  stranger's  wond'ring  ear. 
And  check  the  half-swoln  tear. 
Is  it  or  modesty,  or  pride, 
Which  may  not  open  praise  abide  ? 
No  ;  read  his  inward  thoughts:  they  tell 
His  deeds  of  fame  he  prizes  well. 
But,  ah!  they  in  his  fancy  stand. 
As  relics  of  a  blighted  band. 
Who,  lost  to  man's  approving  sight. 
Have  perish'd  in  the  gloom  of  night. 
Ere  yet  the  glorious  light  of  day 
Had  glitter'd  on  their  bright  array. 
His  mightiest  feat  had  once  another. 
Of  high  imagination  born, — 
46 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

A  loftier  and  a  nobler  brother, 

From  dear  existence  torn; 
And  she  for  those,  who  are  not,  steeps 
Her  soul  in  woe,  —  like  Rachel,  weeps." 

The  moving  circumstances  of  Columbus's  first 
voyages  are,  of  course,  attended  to.  There  is  beau- 
ty in  the  picture,  though  not  as  much  as  might 
have  been. 

"From  shore  and  strait,  and  gulf  and  bay, 
The  vessels  held  their  daring  way, 
Left  far  behind,  in  distance  thrown. 
All  land  to  Moor  or  Christian  known. 
Left  far  behind  the  misty  isle, 
Whose  fitful  shroud,  withdrawn  the  while, 
Shews  wood  and  hill  and  headland  bright, 
To  later  seamen's  wond'ring  sight; 
And  tide  and  sea  left  far  behind 
That  e'er  bore  freight  of  human  kind; 
Where  ship  or  bark  to  shifting  gales 
E'er  tacked  their  [her]  course  or  spread  their  [her]  sails. 
Around  them  lay  a  boundless  main 
In  which  to  hold  their  silent  reign; 
But  for  the  passing  current's  flow. 
And  cleft  waves  brawling  round  the  prow, 
They  might  have  thought  some  magic  spell 
Had  bound  them,  weary  fate !  for  ever  their  to  dwell. 

What  did  this  trackless  waste  supply 
To  sooth  the  mind  or  please  the  eye? 
The  rising  morn  thro'  dim  mist  breaking, 
The  flicker'd  east  with  purple  streaking  ; 
The  mid-day  cloud  thro'  thin  air  flying. 
With  deeper  blue  the  blue  sea  dying; 
Long  ridgy  waves  their  white  mains  rearing, 
And  in  the  broad  gleam  disappearing; 
The  broaden'd  blazing  sun  declining, 
And  western  waves  like  fire-flood  shining  ; 
The  sky's  vast  dome  to  darkness  given, 
And  all  the  glorious  host  of  heaven. 
47 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

Full  oft  upon  the  deck,  while  other's  slept, 

To  mark  the  bearing  of  each  well-known  star 

That  shone  aloft,  or  on  th'  horizon  far, 
The  anxious  chief  his  lonely  vigil  kept; 
The  mournful  wind,  the  hoarse  wave  breaking  near 
The  breathing  groans  of  sleep,  the  plunging  lead. 
The  steersman's  call,  and  his  own  stilly  tread. 

Are  all  the  sounds  of  night  that  reach  his  ear. 

His  darker  form  stalk'd  thro'  the  sable  gloom 

With  gestures  discomposed  and  features  keen, 
That  might  not  in  the  face  of  day  be  seen. 

Like  some  unblessed  spirit  from  the  tomb. 
Night  after  night,  and  day  succeeding  day 
So  pass'd  their  dull,  unvaried  time  away 
Till  hope,  the  seaman's  worship'd  queen,  had  flown 
From  every  valiant  heart  but  his  alone ; 
Where  still,  by  day,  enthron'd  she  held  her  state 
With  sunny  look  and  brow  elate." 

A  rapid  glance  is  afterwards  taken  of  the  new 
world  to  which  this  voyage  led.  We  need  not  in- 
sist on  its  merits. 

Where  he,  the  sea's  unwearied,  dauntless  rover, 
Thro'  many  a  gulph  and  straight,  did  first  discover 

That  continent,  whose  mighty  reach 

From  th'  utmost  frozen  north  doth  stretch 

Ev'n  to  the  frozen  south;  a  land 

Of  surface  fair  and  structure  grand. 

There,  thro'  vast  regions  rivers  pour. 
Whose  mid-way  skiff  scarce  sees  the  shore; 
Which,  rolling  on  in  lordly  pride. 
Give  to  the  main  their  ample  tide; 
And  dauntless  [?]  then,  with  current  strong, 
Impetuous,  roaring,  bear  along. 
And  still  their  sep'rate  honours  keep. 
In  bold  contention  with  the  mighty  deep. 

There  broad-based  mountains  from  the  very  sight 
Conceal  in  clouds  their  vasty  height, 

48 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

Whose  frozen  peaks,  a  vision  rare, 
Above  the  girdling  clouds  rcar'd  far  in  upper  air, 
At  times  appear,  and  soothly  seem 
To  the  far  distant,  up-cast  eye, 
Like  snowy  watch-towers  of  the  sky, — 
Like  passing  visions  of  a  dream. 

There  forests  grand  of  olden  birth, 
O'ercanopy  the  darken'd  earth, 
Whose  trees,  growth  of  unreckon'd  time, 
Rear  o'er  whole  regions  far  and  wide 
A  chequer'd  dome  of  lofty  pride 

Silent,  solemn,  and  sublime, — 
A  pillar'd  lab'rinth,  in  whose  trackless  gloom, 
Unguided  feet  might  stray  till  close  of  mortal  doom. 

There  grassy  plains  of  verdant  green 
Spread  far  beyond  man's  ken  are  seen, 
Whose  darker  bushy  spots  that  lie 
Strewed  o'er  the  level  vast,  descry 
Admiring  strangers,  from  the  brow 
Of  hill  or  upland  steep,  and  show, 
Like  a  calm  ocean's  peaceful  isles. 
When  morning  light  thro'  rising  vapour  smiles." 

From  the  contemplation  of  those  great  scenes, 
we  are  transported  to  a  very  different  class  of  ob- 
jects, in  the  fourth  "Legend" — that  of  Lady  Griseld 
Baillie,  by  far  the  most  successful  in  the  volume. 
This  matter-of-fact  poetry  is  here  in  its  proper 
place;  its  advantages,  such  as  they  are,  come  now 
to  be  of  service.  The  exploits  of  a  powerful  and 
violently  agitated  mind,  if  they  are  intended  to  in- 
dicate its  nature,  must  be  compressed  into  a  nar- 
row space,  and  made  to  tell  upon  us  at  once  with 
their  united  force,  seconded  by  the  poet's  interpre- 
tation and  display  of  them.  It  is  from  the  failure 
in  this,  owing  to  the  prescribed  events  being  dif- 

49 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

fused  over  so  large  a  circle,  and  alloyed  with  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  meanness  of  ordinary  life,  as 
well  as  to  the  want  of  a  capacity  to  enter  fully  into 
the  spirit  of  an  exalted  and  strong  character,  that 
Miss  Baillie  has  not  succeeded  in  conveying  to  us 
any  vivid  or  even  distinct  idea  of  Wallace  and 
Columbus.  The  case  is  different  with  her  most 
amiable  kinswoman. 

—  "She  of  gentler  nature,  softer,  dearer. 

Of  daily  life  the  active,  kindly  cheerer; 

With  generous  bosom,  age,  or  childhood  shielding, 

And  in  the  storms  of  life,  tho'  mov'd,  unyielding; 

Strength  in  her  gentleness,  hope  in  her  sorrow. 

Whose  darkest  hours  some  ray  of  brightness  borrow 

From  better  days  to  come,  whose  meek  devotion 

Calms  every  wayward  passion's  wild  commotion; 

In  want  and  suff'ring,  soothing,  useful,  sprightly. 

Bearing  the  press  of  evil  hap  so  lightly, 

Till  evil's  self  seems  its  strong  hold  betraying 

To  the  sweet  witch'ry  of  such  winsome  playing; 

Bold  from  affection,  if  by  nature  fearful. 

With  varying  brow,  sad,  tender,  anxious,  cheerful, — 

This  is  meet  partner  for  the  loftiest  mind, 

With  crown  or  helmet  grac'd,  — yea,  this  is  womankind!" 

The  simple  doings  of  such  a  meek,  unambitious 
creature,  will  speak  for  themselves;  and,  if  they 
needed  an  interpreter.  Miss  Baillie  understands 
them  well.  Besides,  they  speak  with  that  small, 
still  voice,  which  requires  to  be  often  repeated  be- 
fore it  will  be  listened  to.  A  being  like  this  is 
not  to  be  described  by  combining  a  few  of  its  bold 
and  brilliant  manifestations.  Lady  Griseld  has 
nothing  bold  or  brilliant  in  her  character,  and  its 
excellencies  must  be  unfolded  by  a  minute  and 

50 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

patient  display  of  the  trying,  though  retired  scenes 
in  which  she  proved  their  power.  The  particulars 
of  her  life  should  be  detailed  at  full  length:  and  the 
problem  is  to  detail  them  with  that  sprightliness 
and  vivacity  which  shall  gain  for  them  a  welcome 
admission,  and  prevent  their  littleness  from  weary- 
ing our  attention  and  dissipating  our  sympathies. 

It  is  another  circumstance  in  favour  of  this  Le- 
gend, that,  no  expectations  being  previously  enter- 
tained with  regard  to  its  heroine,  her  modest  worth 
comes  upon  us  with  all  the  advantages  of  surprise. 
Lady  Griseld's  character  and  very  existence  are 
now  for  the  first  time  presented  to  our  thoughts. 
Her  name  does  not,  like  that  of  Wallace  or  Colum- 
bus, occupy  a  large  extent  in  our  imaginations,  and 
awaken  the  idea  of  something  magnificent  and 
vast  whenever  it  is  pronounced.  She  is  not  men- 
tioned in  history,  nor  would  she  make  a  figure 
there.  The  "dear  and  helpful  child"  of  Sir  Patrick 
Hume  might  watch  over  her  father,  when  tyranny 
compelled  him  to  hide  in  the  burial-vault  of  his 
ancestors;  she  might  accompany  her  parents  when 
the  same  tyranny  compelled  them  to  take  shelter 
with  their  family  in  a  foreign  country;  her  affec- 
tionate, cheerful,  unwearied  efforts  might  sweeten 
their  exile;  in  due  time  she  might  be  united  to  her 
early  friend,  (the  younger  Jerviswood,)  and  as  a 
wife  and  mother  become  no  less  exemplary  than 
she  had  been  as  a  daughter  —  and  still  continued 
even  when  a  widow:  but,  though  her  quiet  virtues 
gave  happiness  or  solace  to  all   connected   with 

51 


METRICAL   LEGENDS   OF 

her,  they  are  not  of  a  kind  which  historians  love 
to  dwell  upon. 

In  every  point  of  view,  then,  Lady  Griseld  was 
the  fittest  subject  for  this  species  of  legend.  Her 
actions  were  full  of  lowly  beauty;  they  required  to 
be  developed  minutely,  that  their  beauty  might  be 
demonstrated,  and  to  be  decorated  with  all  the 
graceful  drapery  of  fancy,  that  it  might  be  attract- 
ive. And  what  is  more  important  still,  her  mind 
and  the  situations  in  which  she  was  called  upon  to 
act,  were  at  once  familiar  to  the  every-day  thoughts 
of  Miss  Baillie,  and  such  as  afforded  room  for  em- 
ploying the  most  valuable  and  uncontested  facul- 
ties of  her  genius.  Lady  Griseld,  accordingly,  is 
quite  a  lovely  person.  She  does  not  of  course,  pre- 
tend to  be  an  epic  heroine,  to  sway  over  us  by  the 
potency  and  dazzling  attributes  of  her  character 
and  actions:  but  she  is  something  fully  as  good, 
and  far  more  difficult  for  any  but  a  true  poet  to 
pourtray  with  interest  and  yet  without  exaggera- 
tion. A  calm  unprofessing  benefactress,  she  is 
busied  about  humble  things,  which  pass  without 
notice  in  the  world's  turmoil:  but  her  simple  life  is 
described  so  gracefully;  she  has  withal  such  an 
elastic,  though  silent  strength  of  feeling,  such  a 
generous  forgetfulness  of  self;  there  is  such  a  heav- 
enly innocence  of  soul,  pervading  and  beautifying 
the  earthly  duties,  to  which  she  bends  unwearied- 
ly;  she  appears  so  saint-like,  and  yet  so  warm  and 
cheerful,  and  "studious  of  household  good;"  her 
character  throughout  is  so  emphatically  simplex 

52 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

munditiis,  that  no  one  can  regard  her  without  an 
affectionate  admiration.  There  is  scarcely  any- 
thing more  amiable  in  romance;  and  the  thought, 
that  it  is  all  real,  occurs  most  opportunely  to  con- 
firm and  sanction  our  delight. 

We  dare  not  venture  upon  a  more  detailed  ac- 
count of  her  life ;  our  coarse  attempt  would  but 
spoil  it ;  and  therefore  we  more  earnestly  exhort 
all  our  readers  to  study  Lady  Griseld  for  them- 
selves, and  spare  us  that  unthankful  labour.  They 
will  find  her  as  winning  as  we  have  said;  and  de- 
scribed in  this  "Legend"  with  a  gentle  ardour,  an 
unconscious  dignity,  a  sedulous  faithfulness,  befit- 
ting her  character,  and  of  kindred  to  it.  All  this  is, 
no  doubt,  far  enough  from  having  any  connexion 
with  that  sublime  species  of  poetry,  which  gains 
its  end  by  inflaming  our  hearts  or  expanding  our 
imaginations;  but  it  is  an  exquisite  specimen  of 
that  humbler  species,  which  seeks  to  enliven  our 
kindly  sympathies,  and  brighten  the  scenery  of  our 
common  existence.  The  style  both  of  language 
and  of  versification  is  well  adapted  to  the  style  of 
thought.  Miss  Baillie's  language  has  always  many 
good  qualities,  particularly  in  the  present  volume. 
It  is  never  inflated;  it  has  often  a  careless  elegance, 
and  at  times  a  shrewd  expressiveness,  to  which 
few  living  authors  have  attained.  But  in  the  case 
before  us,  there  is  joined  with  those  beauties  a  cer- 
tain airy  carriage,  a  witching  coquetry,  if  we  may 
speak  so,  which  it  is  as  impossible  to  resist  as  to 
describe. 

53 


METRICAL   LEGENDS    OF 

Our  readers  will  naturally  call  for  a  sample  of 
those  various  and  vaunted  excellencies  —  outward 
as  well  as  substantial;  and  none  that  we  can  select 
will  convey  any  adequate  impression.  The  follow- 
ing is  all  we  are  able  to  afford:  it  contains  but  a 
few  simple  flowers  out  of  a  most  fragrant  and 
healthful  garden.  Sir  Patrick  Hume  has  fled  to 
Holland,  (for  his  share  in  Monmouth's  invasion,) 
and  is  living  there  with  his  family — poor,  but  com- 
forted in  the  hope  of  better  times. 

"And  well,  with  ready  hand  and  heart, 
Each  task  of  toilsome  duty  taking 

Did  one  dear  inmate  play  her  part, 
The  last  asleep,  the  earliest  waking. 

Her  hands  each  nightly  couch  prepared. 

And  frugal  meal  on  which  they  fared; 

Unfolding  spread  the  servct  white. 

And  deck'd  the  board  with  tankard  bright. 

Thro'  fretted  hose  and  garment  rent. 

Her  tiny  needle  deftly  went, 

Till  hateful  penury,  so  graced, 

Was  scarcely  in  their  dwelling  traced. 

With  rev'rence  to  the  old  she  clung, 

With  sweet  affection  to  the  young. 

To  her  was  crabbed  lesson  said. 

To  her  the  sly  petition  made. 

To  her  was  told  each  petty  care; 

By  her  was  lisp'd  the  tardy  prayer. 

What  time  the  urchin,  half  undrest 

And  half  asleep  was  put  to  rest. 

There  is  a  sight  all  hearts  beguiling, — 
A  youthful  mother  to  her  infant  smiling. 
Who,  [which,]  with  spread  arms  and  dancing  feet. 
And  cooing  voice  returns  its  answer  sweet. 
Who  does  not  love  to  see  the  grandamc  mild, 
Lesson  with  yearning  looks  the  list'ning  child? 
54 


EXALTED   CHARACTERS 

But  'tis  a  thing  of  saintlicr  nature, 

Amidst  her  friends  of  pigmy  stature, 

To  see  the  maid  in  youth's  fair  bloom, 

A  guardian  sister's  charge  assume, 

And,  like  a  touch  of  angels'  bliss, 

Receive  from  each  its  grateful  kiss. — 
To  sec  them  when  their  hour  of  love  is  past, 

Aside  their  grave  demeanor  cast. 

With  her  in  mimic  war  they  wrestle; 

Beneath  her  twisted  robe  they  nestle; 

Upon  her  glowing  cheek  they  revel, 

Low  bended  to  their  tiny  level; 

While  oft,  her  lovely  neck  bestriding 

Crows  some  arch  imp,  like  huntsman  riding. 
This  is  a  sight  the  coldest  heart  may  feel, — 
To  make  down  rugged  cheeks  the  kindly  tear  to  steal. 

But  when  the  toilsome  sun  was  set, 
And  ev'ning  groups  together  met, 
(For  other  strangers  shelter'd  there 
Would  seek  with  them  to  lighten  care,) 
Her  feet  still  in  the  dance  mov'd  lightest, 
Her  eye  with  merry  glance  beam'd  brightest. 
Her  braided  locks  were  coil'd  the  neatest, 
Her  carol  song  was  trilled  the  sweetest; 
And  round  the  fire,  in  winter  cold 
No  archer  tale  than  hers  was  told." 

We  meant  to  say  a  few  words  in  favour  of  the 
"  Elder  Tree"  and  "  Malcom's  Heir,"  two  of  the  bal- 
lads which  conclude  this  volume.  But  it  is  impos- 
sible now;  nor  is  it  necessary:  we  can  part  in  kind- 
ness with  Miss  Baillie  here  as  well  as  elsewhere; 
and  we  wish  to  part  in  kindness  with  one  whom 
we  love  so  much.  For  though  we  have  censured 
freely,  it  has  been  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger; 
in  sorrow  to  see  such  efforts  wasted  on  a  task 
which  no  human  powers  could  fully  accomplish. 

55 


METRICAL  LEGENDS  OF  EXALTED  CHARACTERS 

We  never  distrusted  Miss  Baillie's  talents,  and  the 
present  volume  has  raised  them  in  our  esteem.  It 
is  only  her  mode  of  employing  them  that  we  con- 
demn. If  she  can  find  any  more  Lady  Griselds,  it 
will  be  well:  but  we  would  advise  her  to  be  cau- 
tious in  future  of  meddling  with  such  persons  as 
Wallace,  or  Columbus,  —  and  above  all,  of  treating 
them  by  way  of  "Metrical  Legends." 


56 


FAUSTUS 


FAUSTUS' 

[Netv  Edinburgh  Revie'w,  April,  1822] 

The  title  page  of  this  work  excites  expectations 
which  the  work  itself  is  very  little  calculated  to 
fulfil.    It  is  no  translation  of  Faust;  but  merely  a 
pretty  full  description  of  its  various  scenes,  inter- 
spersed at  frequent  intervals  with  extracts  of  con- 
siderable length,  rendered  into  clear  and  very  fee- 
ble blank  verse,— generally  without  great  violence 
to  the  meaning  of  the  original,  or  any  attempt  to 
imitate  the  matchless  beauties  of  its  diction;  —  the 
whole   intended    mainly   to   accompany  a   series 
of  plates  illustrative  of  Faust,  which   have  lately 
been  engraved  by  M.  Moses  from  the  drawings  of 
Retsch,  a  German  artist. 
"The  slight  analysis,  drawn  up  as  an  accompani- 
ment to  Retsch's  Outlines,  being  out  of  print,  the 
publishers  felt  desirous  to  supply  its  place  with  a 
more  careful  abstract  of  Faust,  which,  while  it 
served  as  a  book  of   reference  and  explanation 
for  the  use  of  the  purchasers  of  the  plates,  might 
also  possess  some  claims  to  interest  the  general 
reader.    With  this  view,"  &c. 

'  Faustus;  from  the  German  o(  Goethe.  8vo.  London,  1821. 
59 


FAUSTUS 

We  entertain  no  prejudice  whatever  against  this 
"more  careful  abstract."  It  seems  to  be  a  solid  in- 
offensive undertaking,  founded  on  the  immutable 
principles  of  profit  and  loss,  and  is  accomplished 
quite  as  well  as  could  have  been  expected.  But 
we  have  felt  mortified  at  seeing  the  bright  aerial 
creations  of  Goethe  metamorphosed  into  such  a 
stagnant,  vapid  caput  mortuum:  and  we  cannot 
forbear  to  caution  our  readers  against  forming 
any  judgment  of  that  great  foreigner  from  his  rep- 
resentative; or  imagining  that  "Faustus"  affords 
even  the  faintest  idea  of  the  celebrated  drama,  the 
name  of  which  it  bears.  An  avowedly  prose  trans- 
lation of  the  passages  selected,  would  have  been 
less  unjust  to  all  parties.  It  would  have  enabled 
the  author  to  express  the  sense  of  his  original  with 
equal  gracefulness,  and  far  more  precision,  with- 
out inviting  such  of  his  readers  as  know  the  genu- 
ine Faust  to  institute  comparisons  so  distressing, — 
or  leading  such  of  them  as  do  not  know  it — to 
form  so  erroneous  an  estimate  of  its  merits.  Ac- 
cording to  this  plan,  it  seems  impossible  that  any 
stanza  like  the  following, — 

"Bin  ich  der  Flijchtling  nicht,  der  Unbehaustc? 
Der  Unmensch  ohne  Zweck  und  Ruh? 
Der  wie  ein  Wassersturz  von  Fcls  zu  Fclsen  brauste, 
Begierig  wuthend  nach  dem  Abgrund  zu,"  ' 

'  This  simile  is  fast  degenerating  into  what  Voltaire  called  ttn 
Suisse,  —  a  simile  ready  to  move  at  any  one's  bidding.  We  have 
met  with  it  repeatedly  of  late,  both  in  poetry  and  prose, — Manfred, 
Anastasius,  The  Apostate, — not  to  speak  of  others.  Byron  and 
Hope  spin  it  into  a  fine  allegory,  each  in  his  own  fashion:  Mr 

60 


FAUSTUS 
could  have  been  transformed  so  miserably  as  into 

—  "Oh  !  am  I  not  — 
The  fugitive  —  the  houseless  wanderer — 
The  wild  barbarian  without  an  object} 
Or  like  a  cataract  that  from  rock  to  rock 
With  eager  fury  leaps  heralding  ruin!" 

Poetical  license,  and  the  trammels  of  verse,  are 
all  that  can  be  pleaded  in  extenuation  of  this  and 
a  thousand  such  unhappy  failures.  There  are 
others  for  which  an  humbler  plea  must  serve. 
'*H6r'  auf  mit  deinem  Gram  zu  spieten/'  the  au- 
thor knows  full  well,  cannot  mean,  "O!  learn  to 
dally  with  your  misery:"  nor  on  reconsidering  the 
matter,  will  he  fail  to  discover  that  "a//e  seeks 
Tageiverk"  sign'dies  the  universe,  not — "a  whole 
week's  business;"  or  that  — 

"Und  dann  die  hohe  Intuition 

Ich  darf  niht  —  sagen  wie  —  zu  schliessen" — 

cannot  be  translated  by 

— "And  then  the  high 
The  wond'rous  intuition  ? — I  dare  not 
Proceed." 

If  such  inaccuracies  as  these  had  been  avoided; 
if  the  book  had  borne  a  humbler  title,  and  been 
sober  prose  in  shape,  as  it  is  in  substance,— though 
it  could  not  have  interested  it  would  not  have  of- 
fended "the  general  reader;"  and  purchasers  of 
Retsch's  outlines  would  have  taken  it  with  them 

Shcii,  by  introducing  frost  into  his  cataract,  has  contrived  to  il- 
lustrate very  forcibly  some  doctrines  of  Martinus  Scriblerus  on  the 
Art  of  Sinking.    Da  sublime  au  ridicule  il  n  '31  a  qu'  an  pas. 

bl 


FAUSTUS 

not  the  less,  — which  is  nearly  all  the  circulation 
it  has  any  right  or  chance  ever  to  obtain  under 
any  form. 

Perhaps  we  are  too  severe  on  this  slender  per- 
formance: but  the  sight  of  it  renewed  our  wish  to 
see  Faust  in  an  English  dress;  while  the  perusal  of 
it  mocked  all  such  anticipations.  A  suitable  ver- 
sion of  Faust  would  be  a  rich  addition  to  our  liter- 
ature; but  the  difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way 
of  such  an  undertaking  amount  to  almost  an  ab- 
solute veto.  The  merits  of  a  good  translation,  es- 
pecially in  poetry,  always  bear  some  kindred, 
though  humble,  relation  to  those  of  the  original; 
and  in  the  case  before  us,  that  relation  approaches 
more  nearly  to  equality  than  in  any  other  we 
know  of. 

To  exhibit  in  a  different  tongue  any  tolerable 
copy  of  the  external  graces  of  this  drama,  —  the 
marvellous  felicity  of  its  language,  and  the  ever- 
varying,  ever-expressive  rhythm  of  its  verse,  would 
demand  the  exercize  of  all  that  is  rarest  and  most 
valuable  in  a  poet's  art;  while  the  requisite  famili- 
arity with  such  thoughts  and  feelings  as  it  em- 
bodies, could  not  exist  but  in  conjunction  with 
nearly  all  that  is  rarest  and  most  valuable  in  a 
poet's  genius.  A  person  so  qualified  is  much  more 
likely  to  write  tragedies  of  his  own,  than  to  trans- 
late those  of  others:  and  thus  Faust,  we  are  afraid 
must  ever  continue  in  many  respects  a  sealed  book 
to  the  mere  English  reader. 

Certainly,  it  is  not  with  the  hope  of  doing  much 

62 


FAUSTUS 

to  Open  it  that  we  have  taken  up  the  subject.  But 
if  we  can  succeed  in  describing  —  though  we  can- 
not pretend  to  exhibit — any  of  the  characteristic 
features  of  a  work  so  generally  famous,  our  efforts 
will  not  perhaps  prove  unacceptable  to  many  who 
know  it  only  by  name:  and  for  ourselves,  Faust  is 
so  great  a  favorite  with  us,  that  a  few  hours  can 
scarcely  be  spent  more  agreeably  than  in  lingering 
amid  the  endless  labyrinths  of  thought,  to  which  a 
fresh  perusal  of  it  never  fails  to  introduce  us. 

Goethe  is  likely  to  figure  in  after  ages,  as  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  characters  of  his  time;  and 
posterity  will  derive  from  this  tragedy  their  most 
lively  impressions,  both  of  his  peculiar  excellencies 
and  defects.  Faust  was  conceived  while  its  author 
was  passing  from  youth  to  settled  manhood,  —  a 
period  of  inquietude  in  every  life,  —  frequently,  as 
in  his  case,  of  a  darkness  and  despondency  but  too 
well  suited  to  furnish  ideas  for  such  a  work.  It 
was  executed  when  long  culture  and  varied  expe- 
rience had  ripened  his  powers;  and  under  a  splen- 
dour of  reputation,  which  admitted  the  most  con- 
fident, even  careless  exertion  of  them:  its  object  is 
to  delineate  whatever  is  wildest  and  most  myste- 
rious in  the  heart  and  the  intellect  of  man;  and  its 
chief  materials  are  drawn  from  the  heart  and  the 
intellect  of  the  writer.  In  perusing  it,  accordingly, 
we  seem  to  behold  the  troubled  chaos  of  his  own 
early  woes,  and  doubts,  and  wanderings,  illumi- 
nated in  part,  and  reduced  to  form,  by  succeeding 
speculations  of  a  calmer  nature,   -and  pourtrayed 

63 


FAUSTUS 

by  a  finished  master,  in  all  its  original  vividness, 
without  its  original  disorder.  In  studying  the 
scenes  of  Faust,  we  incessantly  discover  marks  of 
that  singular  union  of  enthusiasm  with  derision;  of 
volatility  with  strength  and  fervour;  of  impetuous 
passion,  now  breaking  out  in  fiery  indignation, 
now  in  melting  tenderness,  now  in  withering  sar- 
casm, with  an  overflowing  gaiety,  not  only  sport- 
ive and  full  of  the  richest  humour,  but  grotesque 
to  the  very  borders  of  absurdity,  or  beyond  them, 
— which  appears  to  belong  exclusively  to  Goethe. 
In  Faust  too,  we  trace  the  subtle  and  restless  un- 
derstanding, which,  at  one  period  or  another  of  its 
history,  has  penetrated  into  almost  every  subject 
of  human  thought;  the  sparkling  fancy,  and,  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  the  boundless  command 
of  language  and  allusion — to  clothe  and  illustrate, 
as  if  by  enchantment,  all  the  conceptions  of  a 
most  capricious,  though  lofty  and  powerful  imag- 
ination. 

Qualities  so  exquisite  have  long  placed  Goethe 
at  the  head  of  German  poets;  and  given  him  a 
kind  of  literary  autocracy  in  his  own  country,  to 
which  nothing  with  us  bears  any  resemblance. 
Unlimited  power  is  said  to  injure  the  possessor  of 
it;  and  here,  as  in  more  important  instances,  it  has 
produced  its  natural  effect.  Goethe  has  suffered, 
as  well  as  profited,  by  the  want  of  criticism;  and 
traces  of  his  having  written  for  a  much  too  indul- 
gent public,  are  visible  in  Faust  no  less  than  traces 
of  his  wonderful  genius.    There  is  a  want  of^unity 

64 


FAUSTUS 

in  the  general  plan  of  the  work,  and  there  are  nu- 
merous sins  against  taste  in  the  execution  of  it. 
We  do  not  allude  to  any  of  the  three  superannuat- 
ed unities  of  Aristotle,  or  the  French  school:  but 
there  is  not  in  Faust  that  unity  of  interest,  which 
we  are  taught  to  expect  in  every  work  of  fiction. 
The  end  has  too  slight  a  connection  with  the  be- 
ginning, the  parts  with  each  other:  and  the  gen- 
eral effect  is  more  than  once  entirely  suspended  by 
the  insertion  of  certain  incoherent  scenes,  which 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  admire  anywhere;  and  no- 
where—  it  might  seem  at  first  view  —  more  diffi- 
cult than  here.  They  resemble  the  disjecta  mem.'' 
bra  of  wit  and  satire,  much  more  than  wit  and 
satire  themselves;  and  though  not  without  some 
gleams  of  meaning  independently  of  the  local  and 
ephemeral  topics  to  which  they  refer,  they  are 
given  out  in  so  raw  a  state  of  preparation  as 
would  undoubtedly  expose  them  to  very  brief  and 
harsh  treatment  from  any  critic  but  a  German  one. 
It  were  unfair,  however,  to  deny  that  this  strange 
mixture  of  pathos,  and  horror,  and  drollery,  ac- 
quires, on  reflection,  a  secondary  beauty,  sufficient 
to  cancel  much  of  its  original  rudeness  and  appar- 
ent incongruity.  Faust  is  not  constructed  on  the 
common  dramatic  principles,  or  at  all  adapted  for 
theatrical  representation.  It  seems  to  aim  at  hold- 
ing up  not  only  a  picture  of  the  fortunes  and  feel- 
ings of  a  single  character,  or  group  of  characters; 
but  at  the  same  time,  a  vague  emblem  of  the 
great  vortex  of  human  life;  and  in  this  point  of 

o5 


FAUSTUS 

view,  its  heterogeneous  composition  and  abrupt 
variations,  even  its  occasional  extravagance,  have 
a  subordinate  propriety,  as  significant  of  the  vast, 
and  confused,  and  ever-changing  object,  which  the 
whole  in  some  degree  is  meant  to  shadow  forth. 

The  "Tragical  History  of  Doctor  Faustus,"  by 
Marlow,  is  grounded  on  the  same  tradition  with 
this  play  of  Goethe's;  but  the  two  pieces  have  little 
else  in  common.  The  genius  of  Marlow  was  of  a 
kind  very  dissimilar  and  very  inferior  to  that  of 
Goethe;  and  the  structure  and  plan  of  his  "Tragi- 
cal History"  point  to  an  age  with  many  of  whose 
feelings  and  opinions  we  are  fast  losing  all  sympa- 
thy. Marlow's  play  derives  its  chief  interest  from 
delineating  the  gloomy  and  mysterious  connection 
of  man  with  the  world  of  spirits:  and  presupposes 
a  certain  degree  of  belief  in  magic  and  apparitions. 
He  has,  in  fact,  done  little  more  than  cast  into  a 
dramatic  form  the  story  of  the  "Devil  and  Doctor 
Faustus,"  which  used  so  powerfully  to  harrow  up 
the  soul  in  the  childhood  of  our  grandfathers,  and 
which  still  produces  a  pleasing,  though  far  milder 
effect,  on  the  more  sceptical  urchins  of  the  present 
age.  The  characters  are  not  more  happily  im- 
agined, than  the  incidents  which  are  intended  to 
display  them.  His  demon  is  a  paltering  rueful  cra- 
ven, whom  we  feel  much  readier  to  pity  and  de- 
spise, than  to  hate  or  fear.  Faustus  himself  has  few 
qualities  to  interest  us.  He  is  animated  indeed  by 
a  boundless  thirst  for  power  and  pleasure;  but  it 
is  power  and  pleasure  of  the  lowest  sort  that  he 


FAUSTUS 

covets.  His  anticipated  delights  are  corporeal ;  and 
he  longs  for  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  author- 
ity,— scarcely  at  all  for  the  bold  energies  which 
serve  to  earn  it,  and  as  exercising  which,  it  is 
alone,  or  chiefly  valuable,  to  a  high  mind.  He 
hopes  that 

"As  Indian  moors  obey  their  Spanish  lords, 

So  shall  the  spirits  of  every  element 

Be  always  serviceable  to  us  three: 

Like  lions  shall  they  guard  us  when  we  please, 

Like  Almain  Ritters  with  their  horsemen's  staves, 

Or  Lapland  giants  trotting  by  our  sides. 

Sometimes  like  women  or  unweddcd  maids, 

Shadowing  more  beauty  in  their  airy  brows 

Than  have  the  white  breasts  of  the  Queen  of  love." 

It  IS  less  the  uncertainty  of  human  knowledge, 
than  the  limited  emoluments  of  a  Wittenberg 
Professorship,  that  disgusts  him;  and  he  concludes 
a  mad  bargain  with  the  devil,  bartering  his  ever- 
lasting happiness  against  four  and  twenty  years  of 
sensual  enjoyment,  and  of  vulgar  power;  which 
he  uses  in  a  way  worthy  of  the  bargain, — in  play- 
ing conjuror's  tricks  to  irritate  the  Pope  or  amuse 
the  Emperor,  in  cheating  jockies,  and  eating  loads 
of  hay;  and  when  the  hour  is  come,  he  falls  pros- 
trate before  his  fate,  with  a  frantic  terror  analo- 
gous to  the  brutal  insolence  with  which  he  had 
spent  the  days  of  his  prosperity.  Marlow's  work 
is  not  without  some  touches  of  the  sublime,  and 
many  passages  of  a  luxurious  beauty;  but  it  never 
could  affect  the  reader  deeply,  as  a  whole,  and  its 
power  of  so  affecting  him  is  lessening  daily. 

67 


FAUSTUS 

Goethe's  conception,  both  of  Faust  and  Mephis- 
tophiles,  bears  not  only  far  more  relation  to  the 
habits  of  a  refined  and  intellectual  age,  but  is  also 
far  more  ingenious  and  poetical  in  itself.  The  in- 
troduction of  magic  is  but  accessory  to  the  main 
result:  it  is  intended  merely  to  serve  as  the  means 
of  illustrating  certain  feelings,  and  unfolding  cer- 
tain propensities,  which  exist  in  the  mind,  inde- 
pendently of  magic;  and  the  belief  we  are  required 
to  give  it  is  of  the  most  loose  and  transient  nature. 
Indeed  if  we  can  only  conceive  that  an  assemblage 
like  this  dramatis  persons,  so  discordant,  and  so 
strangely  related  to  each  other,  has  been  formed 
by  any  means,  the  author  appears  to  care  little 
whether  we  believe  in  it  at  all;  and  throughout 
the  play,  glimmering  indications  frequently  be- 
come visible  of  the  ridicule  with  which  the  char- 
acters themselves,  whatever  they  profess  in  public, 
inwardly  regard  the  whole  subject  of  diablerie  in 
all  its  branches.  Nor  does  Faust's  misery,  at  any 
period  of  his  history,  spring  from  so  common  a 
source  as  the  dread  of  his  future  doom;  "this  sun 
shines  on  all  his  sorrows,"  and  it  would  hardly  al- 
leviate them  perceptibly,  if  the  hereafter  were  to 
be  for  him  an  everlasting  blank.  Mephistophiles, 
too,  is  a  much  more  curious  personage  than  form- 
erly. "The  progress  of  improvement,"  as  he  him- 
self observes,  "has  been  so  considerable  of  late, 
that  it  has  extended  even  to  the  devil — the  north- 
ern phantom  with  horns,  and  tail,  and  claws,  being 
no  longer  visible  upon  earth."    He  is  a  moral,  not 

68 


FAUSTUS 

a  physical  devil;  and  the  attributes  of  his  character 
harmonize  v/ith  the  rest  of  the  intellectual  ma- 
chinery by  which  Goethe  undertakes  to  work 
upon  our  feelings.  It  is  machinery  of  a  much  finer 
and  more  complete  sort  than  that  employed  by 
Marlow;  the  management  of  it  is  infinitely  more 
difficult;  but  the  effect  which  he  makes  it  produce 
is  also  much  more  ennobling,  and  reaches  much 
farther  into  the  mysteries  of  our  nature. 

Faust  is  first  presented  to  our  notice,  seated  at 
his  desk,  in  a  narrow  Gothic  chamber,  dimly  illu- 
minated by  his  solitary  lamp.  Surrounded  with 
all  the  materials  of  study,  he  is  meditating  on  the 
vanity  and  utter  worthlessness  of  all  they  can  lead 
him  to.  In  early  life,  he  has  entered  upon  the 
search  of  truth  with  the  fearlessness  natural  to  his 
ardent  temper,  solicited  by  such  an  object;  spurn- 
ing those  consecrated  barriers,  which,  though 
they  tend  to  repress  the  freedom  of  thought,  often 
serve  also  to  concentrate  its  exertions,  and  there- 
by increase  its  results — he  has  attempted  to  pene- 
trate the  most  secret  recesses  of  physical  and 
mental  nature:  he  has  now  examined  all,  and  no- 
where found  one  satisfactory  conclusion.  From 
each  keener  effort  to  divine  the  essence  of  things, 
his  mind  has  returned  back  more  faint  and  full  of 
doubt:  and  when  philosophy,  in  all  its  depart- 
ments, is  explored  to  the  utmost  limits  of  human 
research,  Faust  finds  himself  as  ignorant  as  at  the 
outset.  Words  will  not  satisfy  him,  and  of  real  ex- 
istences he  cannot  gain  the  knowledge.  There  are 


FAUSTUS 

no  first  indubitable  principles  to  guide  him;  and 
still  the  universe,  study  it  as  he  may,  appears  be- 
fore him  a  dark  entangled  riddle,  the  meaning  of 
which,  if  it  have  any,  is  impenetrably  hid  from 
men.  Nor  is  it  to  knoTv  only  that  he  strives;  the 
sensibilities  of  his  heart  have  been  embarked  in 
this  undertaking  as  well  as  the  faculties  of  his  in- 
tellect— he  would  feel  as  well  as  understand;  and 
he  cherishes  vague  and  vehement  longings  for 
some  unspeakable  communion  with  the  great 
powers  of  nature,  whose  magnificence  expands 
his  soul,  while  their  mysteriousness  confounds 
and  repels  it. 

Faust's  natural  and  acquired  endowments  are 
high,  but  his  ideas  of  excellence  are  vastly  higher. 
All  that  he  can  appears  as  nothing  in  comparison 
of  what — he  should;  and  this  enormous  dispropor- 
tion between  what  he  is,  and  what  he  aims  with 
such  intense  volition  to  become,  forms  a  never- 
failing  source  of  agitation  to  his  mind.  He  has 
gifts  which  would  bear  him  forward  triumphantly 
to  the  acquisition  of  every  thing  that  man  is  per- 
mitted to  acquire;  but  all  will  not  satisfy,  if  he  can- 
not overstep  the  limits  with  which  nature  itself 
has  circumscribed  him. 

Meanwhile,  those  secluded  struggles,  in  which 
the  flower  of  his  days  is  already  spent,  have 
estranged  him  from  the  cheerful  ways  of  men. 
Immured  in  his  closet,  among  books  and  instru- 
ments, and  all  the  dead  machinery  of  art,  he  has 
long  ago  forsaken  the  sunny  fields  of  life;  friend- 

70 


FAUSTUS 

ship,  and  love,  and  worldly  preferment,  have  alike 
been  sacrificed  at  the  shrine  of  science;  and  science 
has  requited  him  with  vain  delusions  and  baseless 
chimeras.  The  spirit  which  longed  to  mingle  with 
the  cherubim,  and  explore  the  darkest  arcana  of 
the  universe,  is  shut  up  within  the  narrow  cell  of 
a  college,  and  reduced  to  conduct  a  few  boys 
through  the  juggling  sophistry  of  scholastic  learn- 
ing. Nor  does  the  magic,  to  which,  in  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  disgust,  he  has  devoted  himself,  avail 
him  anything.  The  beings  whom  he  summons 
from  the  vasty  deep,  refuse  to  admit  him  to  their 
fellowship.  He  shudders  and  sinks  when  the  "  flam- 
ing countenance"  of  the  spirit  of  the  earth  is 
turned  towards  him,  and  finds  himself  too  justly  re- 
proved for  vain  glory  in  imagining  that  his  nature 
could  be  raised  to  a  level  with  it. 

Cheated  of  this  forlorn  hope,  Faust  abandons 
himself  to  utter  despair — he  has  no  longer  an  ob- 
ject upon  earth,  and  still  no  rest.  The  sources  of 
feeling  are  changed  into  sources  of  self  torrrent; 
the  acuteness  of  his  sensibility,  and  the  force  of 
his  will,  serve  only  to  augment  his  sufferings;  his 
superhuman  attainments  lift  him  above  human 
sympathy;  he  envies  the  sluggish  happiness  of 
those  around  him,  still  more  than  he  despises  the 
materials  of  it.  His  heart  is  stung  to  madness, 
when  he  thinks  of  what  he  is,  and  what  he  wished 
to  be-  "an  equal  of  the  gods?"  exclaims  he,  "I 
am  an  equal  of  the  worm,  which  crawls  through 
the  dust;  which    as  it  lives  and   feeds   upon   the 

71 


FAUSTUS 

dust,  the  traveler's  step  annihilates  and  buries." 
In  this  tumultuous  agony,  his  eye  lights  on  a 
phial  of  poison,  and  one  lurid  ray  of  joy  breaks  in 
upon  him,  as  he  determines  on  self-murder.  There 
is  a  stern  pathos,  a  wild  grandeur  in  the  feelings 
with  which  he  surveys  this  undisputed  proof  of 
human  knowledge,  this  essence  of  all  kind  of 
sleepy  juices,  by  which  the  pangs  of  humanity  are 
to  be  quieted  at  once  and  for  ever.  The  lofty 
hopes  of  another  world  dawn  upon  him,  where 
the  soul's  ethereal  essence  shall  no  more  be  clog- 
ged and  cramped  by  its  bodily  fetters  —  where  its 
lordly  feelings  shall  no  more  be  blighted  and  con- 
founded in  the  low  turmoil  of  earth.  The  stream 
of  life  is  carrying  him  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
great  ocean;  the  mirror -wave  is  glancing  at  his 
feet;  new  day  beckons  him  to  brighter  shores.  He 
knows  the  fearful  risk,  but  there  is  no  alternative; 
he  must  boldly  turn  his  face  away  from  this  ter- 
restrial sun,  and  venture  through  that  pass  "around 
whose  narrow  mouth  all  hell  is  flaming,"  whither- 
soever it  may  lead.  The  cup  into  which  he  has 
now  poured  the  poison,  recalls  to  memory  his  fa- 
ther's house,  and  the  festive  nights  in  which  a 
different  use  was  made  of  this  old  relic.  One 
last  paroxysm  of  awakened  sympathies! — but  he 
dashes  them  away,  and  the  cup  is  at  his  lips.  At 
this  instant,  the  choir  assembled  in  the  neighbour- 
ing church  to  celebrate  the  Easter  Festival,  com- 
mence their  hymn  in  worship  of  our  Saviour.  Its 
simple  tones,  and  the  solemn  warning  which  the 

72 


FAUSTUS 

words  address  to  mortals,  toiling  in  this  vale  of 
tears,  arrest  the  hand  of  the  suicide;  the  remem- 
brance of  many  happy  days  of  pious  childhood 
breaks  through  that  of  the  agitated  and  unhallow- 
ed scenes  which  have  succeeded;  his  seared  and 
tortured  heart  is  melted  into  natural  feeling;  "tears 
flow;  the  earth  has  back  her  son." 

But  Faust's  miseries  are  suspended  only  for  a 
time.  Next  day  we  find  him  in  company  with  his 
amanuensis,  Wagner  — a  quiet  gerund-grinder,  a 
collator  of  manuscripts  and  speculator  on  classical 
affairs,  "the  poorest  of  all  the  sons  of  earth,"  — 
whose  phlegmatic  character  and  dull  pursuits  are 
strongly  contrasted  with  the  fervid  temperament 
and  unearthly  longings  of  his  master.  They  wan- 
der about  the  fields,  now  covered  with  lively 
groups  of  the  city  population,  high  and  low,  come 
out  to  enjoy  the  holiday,  and  make  merry  accord- 
ing to  their  respective  inclinations.  Faust  rejoices 
to  find  himself  "a  man  am^ong  men;"  but  as  even- 
ing approaches  he  falls  into  his  usual  reveries; 
pours  out  his  eloquent  impassioned  aspirations 
over  the  setting  sun;  and  returns  home  to  solitude 
and  gloom  as  before.  The  world  again  appears  to 
him  a  mournful  prison-house,  in  which  a  thousand 
cares  are  let  loose  to  prey  upon  the  heart,  and 
mock  all  its  higher  purposes .  He  knows  not 
whither  to  turn  for  comfort  or  instruction.  The 
New  Testament  occurs  to  him,  and  he  eagerly  de- 
termines to  translate  it  into  his  native  language, 
and  study  it  more  attentively  than  ever.      But  a 

73 


FAUSTUS 

difficulty  stops  his  progress  at  the  very  threshold. 
"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word"  is  a  statement 
which  he  cannot  comprehend,  and  no  alteration 
he  can  make  on  the  passage  will  render  it  intelli- 
gible to  him. 

In  the  midst  of  this  perplexity,  an  evil  spirit,  Me- 
phistophiles,  appears  to  Faust,  and  counsels  him 
to  lay  aside  all  such  vain  speculations,  to  go  forth 
into  the  world,  and  enjoy  those  real  pleasures  with 
which  its  votaries  are  rewarded.  With  cold  mal- 
ice, he  leads  Faust's  imagination  to  contemplate 
the  hopeless  barren  disquietudes  of  his  actual  con- 
dition. Faust  admits  that  he  has  no  hope;  that, 
day  or  night,  his  anguish  never  ceases;  that  exist- 
ence is  a  burden  to  him;  and  death  his  only  hope. 
"And  yet,"  rejoins  the  demon,  with  a  spiteful 
apathy  worthy  of  him,  "a  certain  man  one  night 
did  not  drink  out  a  certain  liquor!"  Faust's  heart 
is  cut  by  the  remembrance  of  all  that  he  has  suf- 
fered, and  the  anticipation  of  all  that  he  has  yet  to 
suffer, — ^he  breaks  forth  into  a  bitter  and  indig- 
nant malediction  upon  life  and  everything  con- 
nected with  it. 

"Wenn  aus  dem  schrecklichen  Gewuhle 
Ein  suss  bekanter  Ton  mich  zog, 
Den  Rest  von  kindlichem  Gefuhle 
Mit  Anklang  froher  Zeit  betrog: 
So  fluch'  ich  Allcm,  was  der  Seele 
Mit  Lock-  und  Gaukelwerk  umspannt 
Und  sie  in  diese  Trauerhohlc 
Mit  Blend-  und  Schmeichelkraften  bannt! 
Verslucht  voraus  die  hohe  Meinung, 
Womit  der  Geist  sich  sclbst  umfangtl 
74 


FAUSTUS 

Verslucht  das  BIcnden  der  Erscheinung, 

Die  sich  an  unfre  Sinne  drankt ! 

Verclucht,  was  uns  in  Traumen  heuchelt, 

Des  Ruhms,  der  Namensdauer  Trug  ! 

Verslucht,  was  als  Besitz  uns  schmcichelt, 

Als  Weib  und  Kind,  als  Knccht  und  Pfiug  ! 

Verclucht  sei  Mammon,  wenn  mit  Schatzen 

Er  uns  zu  klihnen  Thaten  regt, 

Wenn  cr  zu  miissigcm  Ergetzen 

Die  Polster  uns  zurechte  legt! 

Fluch  sei  dcm  Balsamsaft  der  Trauben ! 

Fluch  jener  hbchsten  Liebeshuld  ! 

Fluch  sei  der  Hoffnung  !     Fluch  dem  Glauben  ! 

Und  Fluch  vor  alien  der  Gebuld  !  " ' 

'We  are  sorry,  that  to  most  of  our  readers,  instead  of  those  beau- 
tiful verses,  we  have  nothing  to  shew  but  the  following  very  dim 
and  distorted  image  of  them: 

"Tho'  from  my  heart's  wild  tempest 
A  sweet  remember'd  tone  recovered  me. 
And  all  my  youth's  remaining  hopes  responded 
With  the  soft  echo  of  joys  long  gone  by, 
Yet  do  I  curse  them  all — all — all  that  captivates 
The  soul  with  juggling  witchery,  and  with  false 
And  flattering  spells  into  a  [this]  den  of  grief 
Lures  it,  and  binds  it  there.     Accursed  be 
All  the  proud  thoughts  with  which  man  learns  to  pamper 
His  haughty  spirit — cursed  be  those  sweet 
Entrancing  phantoms  which  delude  our  senses — 
Cursed  the  dreams  which  lure  us  to  the  search 
Of  fame  and  reputation, — cursed  all 
Of  which  we  glory  in  the  vain  possession, 
Children  and  wife,  and  slave  and  plough — accursed 
Be  Mammon,  when  with  rich  and  glittering  heaps 
He  tempts  us  to  bold  deeds,  or  when  he  smooths 
The  pillow  of  inglorious  dalliance  — 
Accursed  be  the  grape's  enticing  juice — 
Cursed  be  love,  and  hope,  and  faith — and  cursed 
Above  all  cursed,  be  the  tame  dull  spirit 
Which  bears  life's  evils  patiently" 
75 


FAUSTUS 

The  tempter  now  changes  his  tone.  Having 
worked  his  victim  up  to  the  proper  pitch  of  fierce 
and  desperate  scorn  for  all  his  earthly  lot,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  set  before  him  the  boundless  joys  he  may 
still  secure,  by  listening  to  advice  and  accepting 
assistance  from  him.  Faust  hears  him- — but  con- 
temptuously: "How  can  a  wretch  find,"  he  asks, 
"comprehend  or  find  enjoyment  for  the  lofty 
mind  of  man?"  Yet  if  it  could  be  so — if  I  shall 
ever  lie  at  ease  upon  this  bed  of  torture;  if  thy  de- 
lusions shall  ever  once  cheat  me  into  self-compla- 
cency, once  betray  me  with  enjoyment;  if  I  shall 
ever  say  to  any  moment.  Linger!  thou  art  sweet! — 
then  cast  me  into  fetters,  then  hurl  me  down  to 
ruin:  I  shall  not  refuse  to  go.  The  great  spirit  of 
the  earth  has  spurned  me:  Nature  veils  herself 
from  my  examination:  can  the  future  world  be 
worse  than  this?  Living  here,  I  am  a  slave:  What 
matters  whether  thine  or  whose?  Mephistophiles 
grasps  at  the  offer.  The  contract  is  ratified  with 
the  usual  formalities.  He  is  to  be  Faust's  while 
here,  Faust  is  to  be  his  hereafter. 

Except  the  character  of  Faust  himself,  that  of 
his  new  associate  is  by  far  the  most  striking  and 
original  in  the  whole  of  this  wonderful  drama. 
Mephistophiles  is  not  the  common  devil  of  poetry, 
but  one  much  more  adapted  to  his  functions.  It  is 
evident  that  he  was  a  devil  from  the  first — and 
can  be  nothing  else.  He  is  emphatically  "the 
Denyer:"  he  fears  nothing,  complains  of  nothing, 
,  hopes  for  nothing.    Magnanimity,  devotion,  affec- 

76 


FAUSTUS 

tion,  all  that  can  sweeten  or  embellish  existence, 
he  looks  upon  as  childish  mummery.  His  powerful 
intellect  enables  him  to  understand  all  those  senti- 
ments and  their  modes  of  acting  upon  men:  but 
the  idea  of  them  excites  no  pleasure  in  his  mind; 
and  he  regards  all  their  manifestations  as  the  most 
weak  and  ridiculous  anility.  Pride  would  be  a 
thing  too  noble  for  him;  yet  his  servile  conduct 
proceeds  less  from  natural  sycophancy,  than  from 
an  utter  contempt  of  moral  distinctions.  He  feels 
it  no  more  disgraceful  to  cringe  and  fawn,  that  he 
may  avoid  the  trouble  of  asserting  and  command- 
ing, than  it  would  be  to  go  round  the  base  of  a 
mountain,  that  he  might  avoid  the  trouble  of  go- 
ing over  its  summit;  it  is  the  easiest  mode  of  ac- 
complishing his  purpose  in  both  cases,  and  noth- 
ing more.  He  might  be  accused  of  inordinate  van- 
ity, but  his  unfeigned  disregard  for  the  approba- 
tion of  others  gives  to  his  self-esteem  a  character 
more  sinister  than  that  of  ordinary  vanity.  He 
cares  for  the  suffrage  of  no  one  —  irony  is  the  only 
tone  in  which  he  speaks  of  all  things;  and  the 
universe  itself  appears  in  his  eyes  little  better  than 
a  huge  puppet-show,  and  its  whole  history  a  pal- 
try farce,  in  which  there  is  nothing  to  excite  any 
feeling  but  derision  from  a  rational  thinker.  He 
does  not  even  appear  to  hate  any  one  very  deeply. 
His  aim  with  Faust  seems  rather  that  of  an  ama- 
teur, than  of  a  regular  demon:  he  tempts  him 
chiefly  as  an  intellectual  recreation.  No  doubt,  his 
motives,  like  all  motives,  are  mixed;  but  he  seems 

77 


^/ 


FAUSTUS 

in  the  course  of  his  operations  to  display,  not  so 
much  the  rancour  and  envy  natural  to  his  profes- 
sion, as  a  desire  purely  scientific— a  curiosity  to 
see  how  ridiculous  the  empty  dreamer,  with  all  his 
elevations  and  refinements,  his  imaginary  woes 
and  still  more  imaginary  joys,  will  look  at  last.  In 
many  respects  Mephistophiles  resembles  some 
French  philosophe  of  the  last  century.  There  is 
the  perfection  of  the  intellectual  faculties  with  a 
total  absence  of  the  moral;  the  extreme  of  fanciful 
pleasantry  and  acute  thought,  with  the  extreme  of 
arid  selfishness  and  contemptuous  apathy.  Upon 
all  those  passions  and  emotions  which  men  are 
ennobled  by  experiencing,  he  reasons  with  the 
keen  sagacity  and  easy  disdain  of  the  most  accom- 
plished cynic.  The  sciences  fare  still  worse  with 
him.  Logic,  medicine,  law,  theology,  as  they  pass 
in  review  before  him,  are  ridiculed  till  they  seem 
hardly  even  worth  despising.  His  wit,  and  knowl- 
edge, and  gaiety,  and  humour,  are  boundless;  but 
in  his  hands  they  do  not  illuminate— ^ they  con- 
sume. "It  is  written  on  his  front  that  he  never 
loved  a  living  soul."  He  cannot  pity,  or  admire, 
or  worship — he  can  only  mock.  His  presence  is 
like  a  moral  Harmattan,  the  "mortifying  wind"  of 
the  desert,  under  which  every  green  thing  is 
parched  and  dies. 

From  the  moment  when  Faust  connects  himself 
with  such  a  being,  his  character  and  conduct  be- 
come degraded;  we  pity  him  not  the  less,  but  much 
of  our  respect  is  gone.    He  seems  as  if  he  had 

78 


FAUSTUS 

thrown  away  the  crown  of  his  manhood,  which, 
though  it  galled  his  brow,  was  still  a  crown.  He 
has  become  a  slave  that  he  might  avoid  the  duties 
of  a  king;  and  the  pleasures  of  a  slave  are  not 
suited  to  his  nature.  It  was  himself  still  more 
than  his  circumstances  that  required  change:  the 
wildness  of  his  desires  still  more  than  the  scanti- 
ness of  their  gratification  produced  his  misery;  and 
the  vulgar  enjoyments  of  the  world  may  contami- 
nate him  more,  but  will  satisfy  him  even  less  than 
the  high  though  infatuated  struggles  he  has  now 
relinquished.  Accordingly,  he  traverses  "the 
bustling  inanity  of  life:  food  hovers  before  his 
eager  lips;  but  he  begs  for  nourishment  in  vain." 
His  heart  is  alternately  wounded  by  the  sneers,  and 
betrayed  by  the  wiles  of  the  scoffing  demon  who 
guides  him;  and  he  loses  his  dignity  without  find- 
ing peace. 

Faust  has  given  up  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  in 
disgust;  but  he  has  not  yet  become  a  mere  man  of 
pleasure.  Mephistophiles  listens  with  a  smile  to 
his  vast  project  of  participating  in  the  pains  and 
joys  of  all  the  human  race,  and  filling  his  soul  with 
human  sympathy,  since  it  cannot  be  filled  with 
the  perception  of  truth,  and  the  sympathy  of  high- 
er natures.  All  this,  according  tn  Mephistophiles, 
proceeds  from  the  imperfection  of  his  pupil's  un- 
derstanding. The  search  of  truth  is  but  like 
"thrashing  straw,"  it  leads  to  no  result;  and  those 
ambitious  aspirations  serve  only  to  make  the  fool, 
who   entertains    them,    no    better  than    "a  beast 

79 


FAUSTUS 

driven  about  by  an  evil  spirit  within  a  circle  of 
withered  heath,  while  green  pastures  lie  all  around 
it."  To  command  the  services  of  others,  he  thinks 
at  least  equal  to  sympathizing  with  their  feelings; 
and  therefore,  a  wise  man  should  plunge  into  the 
rushing  crowd  of  the  week-day  world;  should 
court  power,  and  the  only  genuine  pleasures, — 
those  of  sense. 

With  such  views,  the  two  set  out  together  on 
their  travels:  they  are  first  transported  to  a  scene 
of  boisterous  merriment  in  a  Leipsic  tavern.  The 
rude  jollity  of  the  these  blackguards  appears  more 
amusing  as  depicted  in  the  graphic  poetry  of 
Goethe,  than  it  would  if  actually  exhibited  in  Auer" 
bach's  Keller,  It  speedily  disgusts  Faust;  and  his 
mentor,  after  entertaining  the  topers  with  an  in- 
describable song,  and  at  last  confounding  them  by 
some  feats  of  conjuring,  conducts  him  to  a  witch's 
cave.  The  purpose  of  their  visit  is  to  have  Faust 
restored  to  youth  by  the  spells  of  this  Hecate:  and 
they  wait  during  her  absence  considering  the  sin- 
gular furniture  of  her  establishment. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  sublime  in  Goethe's 
mode  of  treating  sorcery — scarcely  anything  of 
the  horrible.  A  kind  of  solemn  absurdity  marks 
all  his  witches;  they  have  not  the  malevolence  us- 
ually imputed  to  that  class  of  persons;  and  they 
appear  to  live  on  a  very  friendly  footing  with  their 
master,  shewing  no  wish  to  quit  his  service  now 
or  afterwards.  All  that  distinguishes  them  from 
common   mortals  is   the  extreme   absurdity  and 

80 


FAUSTUS 

coarseness  of  their  general  character,  and  its  adap- 
tation to  the  peculiarity  of  their  position,  midway, 
as  it  were,  between  the  world  of  spirits  and  that  of 
men.  The  latter  circumstance  also  gives  them  a 
tendency  to  survey  life  and  human  nature,  in  the 
abstract — to  take  comprehensive  views  of  things; 
and  this  tendency,  combined  with  the  dimness  of 
their  intellectual  vision,  furnishes  a  copious  supply 
of  the  most  ludicrous  hallucinations— tinged  with 
a  slight  shade  of  preternatural  horror,  which  in- 
creases its  effect.  Perhaps,  in  the  present  era,  this 
is  the  best  use  that  can  be  made  of  witchcraft.  So 
far  as  we  know,  it  is  peculiar  to  Goethe. 

The  return  of  youth,  which  Faust  greeted  as  the 
highest  blessing,  becomes  the  means  of  sinking 
him  into  wretchedness  forever;  and  deeper  wretch- 
edness than  ever,  because  it  is  now  mingled  with 
remorse.  In  crossing  the  street  he  first  beholds 
Margaret;  and  their  earthly  fortunes  are  thence- 
forth indissolubly  connected.  Margaret  possesses 
no  qualities  to  call  forth  our  admiration;  yet  the 
poet  has  contrived  to  make  us  warmly  interested 
in  her  favour.  She  is  poor  and  simple — nothing 
but  a  young  artless  girl  in  humble  life.  Yet  the 
meek  gracefulness  of  her  nature,  her  innocence  of 
heart,  the  strength  and  purity  of  her  first  affec- 
tion— when  contrasted  with  the  dark  fate  that  im- 
pends over  her-  -excite  our  pity  keenly;  and  we 
regret  that  a  class  of  interests  so  touching  in  their 
lowly  completeness,  should  have  been  desolated 
by  the  intrusion  of  the  wicked  and  tumultuous  pas- 

81 


FAUSTUS 

sions  of  a  world,  from  which  she  seemed  so  far 
withdrawn.  Faust  her  lover, — for  he  loves  her 
truly,  and  with  a  fervour  originating  not  in  her 
qualities  but  his  own  character, — is  aware  of  their 
relative  situation.  In  the  delirium  of  his  feelings, 
he  does  not  forget  that  the  innocent  creature,  who 
views  him  with  such  adoration  that  her  whole  be- 
ing is,  as  it  were,  swallowed  up  in  his,  must  partici- 
pate in  the  ruin  which  overhangs  him.  He  utters 
many  a  bitter  self-reproach,  and  forms  many  a 
strenuous  resolution  to  tear  himself  away.  But 
the  violence  of  his  attachment  still  retains  him; 
the  arts  of  the  fiend — whom  he  despises  and  hates, 
yet  listens  to— at  length  prevail;  and  poor  Marga- 
ret's ruin  is  completed. 

The  succeeding  scenes  exhibit  Margaret  in  a 
state  of  anguish  gradually  darkening  to  despair. 
She  has  unwittingly  destroyed  her  mother, — a 
drug  intended  to  be  only  soporific,  having  by  the 
treachery  of  Mephistophiles  proved  a  deadly  poi- 
son: and  Valentine,  a  brave  soldier,  her  brother, 
and  now  her  only  surviving  relative,  hearing  of 
his  beloved  sister's  disgrace,  and  hastening  to 
avenge  it,  dies  by  the  hand  of  Faust.  Valentine 
appears  before  us  only  for  a  moment,  and  then 
expires:  but  the  qualities  he  displays  in  that  mo- 
ment make  us  regret  that  we  see  him  no  more. 
He  reminds  us  of  Shakspeare's  Mercutio.  He 
speaks,  with  his  dying  breath,  to  his  sister,  in  a 
tone  of  bitter  levity,  more  cutting  than  the  most 
indignant  declamation.     Her  own  heart  but  too 

82 


FAUSTUS 

well  seconds  his  reproaches.  Alone  and  unpro- 
tected,— her  friends  all  killed  by  her  own  hand — 
her  seducer  fled  to  escape  from  justice — and  in- 
famy approaching  to  cover  her, — Margaret  has 
now  no  stay  on  earth.  Religion  itself,  which  once 
formed  the  balm  of  her  life,  is  now  become  its 
bane.  In  the  church,  where  the  choir  is  chanting 
a  solemn  hymn  expressive  of  the  terrors  of  the  last 
day,  an  evil  spirit  is  represented  as  standing  behind 
Margaret,  and,  applying  the  most  fearful  of  the 
denunciations  to  her;  it  asks  where  her  mother  is? 
where  her  brother?  and  pronounces  a  woe  against 
her,  because  their  blood  is  on  her  hands. 

Faust  and  his  companion,  meantime,  are  assist- 
ing at  a  very  different  scene.  They  have  hastened 
to  the  Brocken  in  the  Hartz  Mountains,  where  the 
sorcerer's  Sabbath,  the  Walpurgis-night,  or  night 
of  the  first  of  May,  is  receiving  due  celebration 
from  innumerable  witches  and  wizards  of  every 
age  and  rank.  It  is  impossible  to  convey  any  idea 
of  this  extraordinary  convention,  or  of  the  plan 
which  Goethe  has  taken  to  depict  it.  We  behold 
the  mountain  and  the  adjacent  forests  gleaming 
with  a  faint  lugubrious  light;  and  witches  in  full 
motion  towards  it  from  every  point  -  crowding, 
jostling,  treading  each  other  under  foot — sailing  in 
troughs,  riding  on  swine,  or  broomsticks— and 
capering  in  all  the  frantic  jollity  of  their  brutish 
carnival.  Goethe  appears  to  have  aimed  at  imitat- 
ing in  his  verse  the  wild  uproar,  which  it  was  his 
task  to  describe.    It  is  the  Saturnalia  of  poetry  as 

83 


FAUSTUS 

well  as  of  witchcraft.  An  intermezzo  is  repre- 
sented before  the  infernal  audience,  on  the  summit 
of  the  mountain.  Its  title  is  Oberon's  Golden 
Marriage :  iX  treats,  like  Quevedo's  book  de  om" 
nibus  rebus  ei  quibusdam  aliis.  The  interlocu- 
tors, who  deliver  each  one  verse,  are  from  all 
quarters  of  the  animal,  vegetable,  astronomical, 
theatrical,  and  metaphysical  world, — scene-shifters 
of  Weimar,  will-o'-wisps,  weathercocks,  fairies, 
the  Genius  of  the  age,  and  snuffings  of  the  stars. 
It  is  "a  universal  hubbub  wild,  of  stunning  sounds 
and  voices  all  confused."  Feeble  glimpses  of 
meaning  occur  here  and  there;  but  the  whole 
wavers  between  sense  and  utter  nothingness,  and 
leaves  an  impression  like  the  first  dawnings  of 
thoughts  in  the  mind,  before  they  can  at  all  be 
converted  into  propositions  capable  of  being  con- 
tradicted or  affirmed. 

Faust  mingles  in  this  Satanic  revelry  more  than 
we  could  wish:  yet  he  soon  grows  tired  of  it;  and 
we  can  almost  pardon  him  for  having  snatched  a 
few  moments  of  enjoyment,  or  at  least  forgetful- 
ness,  from  a  source  however  mean,  when  we  re- 
flect that  they  are  the  last  allotted  to  him.  The 
riotous  pastime  being  ended,  he  discovers  that 
Margaret  has  been  imprisoned  for  the  crimes 
which  she  committed  on  his  account,  and  is  con- 
demned to  die.  The  agonies  of  remorse  take  hold 
of  him  at  the  comparison  of  her  recent  miseries 
and  hard  doom,  with  the  wretched  fooleries  which 
have  lately  occupied  him.    But  the  tempest  of  his 

84 


FAUSTUS 

feelings  moves  not  Mephistophiles.  It  is  vain  for 
Faust  to  imprecate  a  thousand  curses  on  the  head 
of  this  wicked  spirit:  the  demon  listens  with  pro- 
found composure;  the  victim  is  now  within  his 
toils;  and  the  aid  he  at  last  proffers  serves  only  to 
bring  on  a  more  torturing  catastrophe.  Faust  is 
furnished  with  the  keys,  and  conducted  to  the 
door  of  the  prison,  where  Margaret  is  confined, 
while  his  companion  stupifies  the  jailor,  and  agrees 
to  wait  with  his  phanton-steeds  in  readiness  to 
convey  them  all,  ere  morning,  out  of  danger.  But 
the  efforts  of  Faust  prove  fruitless.  On  exploring 
his  way  to  the  cell  where  Margaret  lies  confined, 
he  discovers  that  hardship  has  already  crazed  her 
brain.  She  is  singing  a  rude  ballad  when  he  enters, 
and  mistakes  him  for  her  executioner.  Few  sit- 
uations can  be  conceived  more  excruciating  than 
Faust's.  Before  him  are  the  ruins  of  that  young 
mind  whose  innocence  he  has  destroyed,  whose 
world,  just  opening,  with  enchantments  of  which 
experience  had  not  yet  proved  the  vanity,  he  has 
changed  into  a  waste  howling  wilderness;  and  his 
last  hope  of  saving  her  even  from  an  ignominous 
and  painful  death  is  rendered  vain.  He  conjures  her 
to  fly,  and  he  will  yet  love  her  and  watch  over  her: 
but  his  words  suggest  no  definite  idea  to  her  mind: 
the  power  of  thought  is  gone,  while  that  of  feeling 
subsists  in  more  than  its  original  strength;  the 
wrecks  of  memory  are  confusedly  mingled  with 
abrupt  sensations  of  the  present,  and  hurried  an- 
ticipations of  the  future,  and  over  all  is  heard  the 

85 


FAUSTUS 

wail  of  blind  and  degraded  woe,  more  piercing  be- 
cause it  is  blind  and  degraded — without  claims  to 
respect  or  hope  of  remedy.  Goethe  has  pictured 
the  insanity  of  Margaret  with  an  almost  frightful 
air  of  reality.  There  is  a  tinge  of  coarseness  inter- 
mingled with  the  wild  expression  of  her  distracted 
feelings:  it  is  not  the  insanity  of  poetry,  but  that  of 
life.  She  recognizes  her  lover;  and  her  first  senti- 
ment is  a  burst  of  joy:  but  her  perceptions  have  no 
permanency;  she  replies  to  his  renewed  and  more 
earnest  supplications  for  departure,  with  a  "Whith- 
er?— without  is  the  grave"— she  alludes  to  her 
murdered  child,  which  she  calls  upon  him  to  make 
haste  and  save;  wishes  she  were  past  the  hill  where 
her  mother  sits  wagging  her  old  grey  head,  which 
is  heavy  with  sleep;  tells  affectingly,  how  she  her- 
self would  be  buried  to-morrow, — and  relapses 
into  dreams  which  transport  her  back  to  the  ear- 
lier periods  of  their  intimacy.  He  begs  her,  if  she 
would  not  kill  him,  to  come  away — "the  day  is 
dawning; — Day!"  she  exclaims,  "yes,  it  is  day — 
the  last  day  is  dawning;  it  should  have  been  my 
wedding  day!  Tell  no  one  that  you  have  been 
with  Margaret — Alas!  for  my  garland  —  it  is  gone! 
We  shall  see  each  other  again;  but  not  at  the 
dance.  The  mob  is  rushing,  yet  I  hear  them  not — 
the  square,  the  streets,  are  crowded  with  them; 
they  hurry  me  to  the  block — how  they  bind  and 
tie  me! — the  bell  is  tolling — the  judgment-wand  is 
broken,  every  neck  shrinks  as  the  axe  severs  mine. 
The  world  lies  dumb  as  the  grave!"    Mephisto- 

86 


FAUSTUS 

philes  appears  at  the  door  to  chide  their  "useless 
lingering  and  prating" — his  horses  shiver  in  the 
morning  breeze,  he  will  wait  no  longer.  Margaret 
shrieks  at  sight  of  him;  she  fervently  appeals  to 
the  judgment  of  heaven;  and  prefers  death  and  the 
loss  of  her  last  earthly  friend  to  being  where  he 
has  any  power.  The  demon  observes  that  "she  is 
judged;"  a  voice  from  above,  adds,  that  "she  is 
saved."  Mephistophiles  calls  Faust  to  him  and 
departs;  the  voice  of  Margaret  is  heard  from  with- 
in crying  after  the  latter — but  in  vain — their  earthly 
history  is  done,  their  lots  are  divided,  they  meet 
no  more. 

The  work,  of  which  we  have  traced  this  brief 
and  imperfect  sketch,  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most  singular  that  have  ever  appeared  in  Europe. 
We  scarcely  know  under  what  class  to  arrange  it, 
or  how  to  mark  out  its  rank  in  the  scale  of  literary 
dignity.  As  a  n\ere  drama,  its  faults  are  many; 
and  its  beauties,  though  of  a  high  order,  are  not  of 
the  highest.  There  is  not  plot  sufficient  to  create 
dramatic  interest;  and  though  many  scenes  are  of 
great  power,  and  many  situations  of  high  tragical 
effect,  they  hang  too  loosely  together  to  consti- 
tute a  perfect  work  of  this  class.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  whole  perform- 
ance is  the  wonderful  versatility  of  talent  which 
it  implies.  To  group  together  the  wicked  scorn- 
ful malignity  of  Mephistophiles  with  the  pastoral 
innocence  of  Margaret,  the  chaotic  gaiety  of  the 
Brocken,  and  the  impetuous  enthusiasm  of  Faust, 

87 


FAUSTUS 

was  a  task  which  few  could  have  meditated,  and 
none  but  Goethe  could  have  accomplished.  It  pre- 
supposes a  union  of  poetical  and  philosophical 
powers,  such  as  have  rarely  met  together  in  the 
history  of  mind. 

It  is  to  the  character  of  Faust,  however,  as  dis- 
played in  the  opening  scenes  of  the  play,  that  we 
turn  for  the  highest  proof  of  Goethe's  genius. 
They  give  us  the  most  vivid  picture  we  have  ever 
seen  of  a  species  of  mental  convulsion,  at  once  in 
the  extreme  degree  moving  and  difficult  to  paint. 
It  is  the  destruction  of  a  noble  spirit  by  the  force 
of  its  own  thoughts;  a  suicide  of  the  mind,  far  more 
tragical  than  that  of  the  body.  Faust  interests  us 
deeply  at  first;  he  is  at  the  utmost  pitch  of  misery, 
and  has  no  feeling  of  self-accusation;  he  possesses 
all  the  grandest  attributes  of  our  nature,  and  has 
meant  to  use  them  well.  His  fault  seems  but  the 
want  of  wordly  wisdom,  and  the  lofty,  though  un- 
happy constitution  of  his  mind;  he  has  been  born 
with  the  head  of  a  sceptic  and  the  heart  of  a  de- 
votee; in  grasping  at  the  sublime,  he  has  lost  even 
the  useful;  when  his  earthly  hopes  are  all  blasted, 
no  moral  consolation  is  in  store  for  him;  "he  has 
not  an  object,  and  yet  he  has  not  rest."  The  sleep- 
less agitation,  the  arid  tearless  wretchedness,  nat- 
ural to  a  human  being  so  situated,  have  been 
delineated  by  Goethe  with  a  beauty  and  verisimili- 
tude, to  which  there  are  few  parallels,  even  in 
easier  subjects.  An  unlimited  supply  of  the  finest 
metaphors  and  most  expressive  language,  com- 

88 


FAUSTUS 

bines  with  the  melody  of  the  verse  to  make  the 
earlier  part  of  Faust  one  of  the  richest  spots  in  the 
whole  circle  of  modern  poetry. 

Faust  and  Mephistophiles  personify  the  two  pro- 
pensities, as  implanted  by  nature,  and  modified  by 
education — to  admire  and  to  despise,  to  look  at 
the  world  on  its  poetical  or  on  its  prosaic  side  — 
which  by  their  combination,  in  different  propor- 
tions, give  rise  to  so  many  varieties  of  moral 
disposition  among  men.  It  is  not  without  reluc- 
tance, that  in  the  play  before  us,  we  behold  the 
inferior  principle  triumphant  in  the  end.  Faust's 
crimes  are  many,  but  his  will  seems  to  have  had 
little  share  in  them;  even  after  his  connection 
with  the  fiend,  he  feels  virtuously,  even  nobly, 
though  he  acts  ill;  and,  when  we  see  Mephisto- 
philes at  length  succeed  in  ruining  a  being  so 
greatly  his  superior  in  all  respects,  it  seems  as  if 
the  spirit  of  evil  were  made  victorious  over  that 
of  good,  the  lower  part  of  man's  nature  over  the 
higher.  But  if  such  be  our  feeling,  it  is  not  with 
the  poet  that  wc  must  quarrel.  "The  soul  that 
sinneth,  it  shall  die"  is  the  law  of  nature  as  well 
as  of  revelation;  and  acts  of  desperate  rashness, 
though  without  any  purpose  morally  bad  in  the 
author  of  them,  as  they  produce  fatal  consequences 
to  the  individual  or  to  others,  must  be  punished 
accordingly.  Faust's  criminality  existed  long  be- 
fore he  forsook  his  retirement,  or  addicted  him- 
self to  the  converse  of  spirits;  it  began  when  he 
allowed  his  desires  to  reach  beyond  the  boundaries 

89 


FAUSTUS 

wherewith  nature  had  circumscribed  them,  when 
he  allowed  his  mind  to  wander  —  even  in  the 
search  of  truth — till  it  doubted  the  existence  of  a 
Providence,  and  the  foundation  of  moral  distinc- 
tions. All  his  subsequent  miseries  and  crimes 
originated  in  this — at  first  view,  so  pardonable  a 
transgression;  and  the  concluding  Hnes  of  Marlow 
may  be  applied  to  his  conduct  and  history,  with  a 
sense  more  extended  than  Marlow  meant  them  to 
bear — 

Cut  is  the  branch  that  might  have  grown  full  straight; 

And  burned  is  Apollo's  laurel  bough, 

That  some  time  grew  within  this  learned  man; 

Faustus  is  gone:  regard  his  hellish  fall, 

Whose  fiendful  fortune  may  exhort  the  wise 

Only  to  wonder  at  forbidden  things — 

Whose  deepness  doth  entice  such  forward  wits 

To  practice  more  than  heavenly  power  permits. 

We  cannot  take  leave  of  Faust,  without  advert- 
ing to  the  controversy  which  has  arisen  respect- 
ing its  connection  with  Manfred.  The  charge  of 
plagiarism,  which  Goethe  brought  forward  against 
Byron,  some  time  ago,  in  a  German  Journal — and 
still  more  his  mode  of  bringing  it  forward — gave 
us  pain;  we  thought  it  unworthy  of  Goethe;  it 
shews  too  much  of  the  author,  too  little  of  the 
man.  Goethe  may  be  at  ease  about  his  laurels.  It 
has  been  his  fortune  to  live  through  a  change  of 
dynasty  in  European  poetry,  and  to  be  himself, 
more  than  any  other,  instrumental  in  causing  that 
change.  He  has  created  a  new  literary  era  in  his 
own  country;  and  none  will  dispute  him  the  glory 

90 


FAUSTUS 

not  only  of  having  furnished  many  scattered  ideas 
— but  what  is  far  more  honorable  — much  impor- 
tant intellectual  training,  to  every  one  of  the  great 
minds,  with  whose  fame  all  Europe,  and  particu- 
larly England  "rings  from  side  to  side."  The  man 
whose  writings  served  to  nourish  and  direct  the 
genius  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, — whose  Gotz  <von  Ber^ 
lichingen  paved  the  way  for  the  poetizing  of 
Border  Chivalry,  and  thus  prepared,  afar  off,  the 
elements  of  the  Scot's  novels,  has  no  need  to 
higgle  with  Byron  about  even  the  property  of 
Manfred.  It  is  not  our  business  at  present  to 
enter  upon  the  discussion  of  the  point  in  dispute. 
A  cursory  perusal  of  Faust  and  Manfred,  we 
think,  will  satisfy  any  one,  that  both  works  stand 
related  to  each  other, —  that  if  Faust  had  never 
seen  the  light,  neither  in  all  probability  would 
Manfred.  Yet  it  does  not  appear  to  be  apparent, 
but  as  forerunner,  that  Faust  is  related  to  Manfred. 
The  idea  of  man's  connection  with  the  invisible 
world  is  the  same  in  both;  but  in  Byron  it  is 
treated  solemnly;  in  Goethe  it  often  furnishes 
matter  of  laughter.  Manfred,  too,  is  not  the  same 
character  with  Faust;  he  is  more  potent,  and 
tragical,  less  impetuous  and  passionate,  and  the 
feeling  of  remorse  is  added  to  that  of  the  uncer- 
tainty of  hunian  knowledge.  In  the  management 
of  the  plot,  the  two  pieces  have  no  similarity,  and 
the  impressions  they  leave  on  the  reader  are  as 
different  as  possible.  Byron  is  not  a  copyist,  but 
a  generous  imitator,  who  rivals  what  he  imitates. 


FAUSTUS 

We  have  not  heard  that  Goethe  has  given  in  any 
claim  to  a  right  of  property  in  Don  Juan.  Perhaps 
he  might,  with  some  prospect  of  success;  but  the 
advantage  of  succeeding  would  be  small.  Mephis- 
tophiles  is  unfortunately,  not  a  character  very 
difficult  to  conceive;  nor  has  our  countryman 
presented  it  under  a  form  likely  ever  to  become 
very  pleasing,  or  permanently  useful.  The  Ger- 
man devil  is  a  much  shrewder  fellow  than  the 
biographer  of  Don  Juan;  he  sneers  as  keenly  and 
as  comprehensively;  he  despises  with  fully  more 
sprightliness  and  tact;  and  the  taste  for  physical 
impurity  in  all  its  most  disgusting  shapes,  which 
his  English  rival  manifests  so  strongly,  is  one  of 
the  few  qualities  which  the  great  "Denyer"  seems 
to  have  acted  wisely  in  denying. 


92 


FAUST'S  CURSE 


FAUST'S  CURSE 

[From  Goethe] 

By  Thomas  Carlyle 

"Our  armies  swore  terribly  in  Flanders,"  said 
the  Corporal,  "but  it  was  nothing  to  this." 

"If,  through  th'  abyss  of  terror  stealing, 

Those  touching  sounds'  my  purpose'  stay'd- 

Some  lingering  touch  of  childish  feeling, 

With  voice  of  merrier  times  betray'd, — 

I  curse  the  more  whate'er  environs 

The  cheated  soul  with  juggling  shows, 

Those  heart's  allurements,  fancy's  syrens, 

That  bind  us  to  this  den  of  woes. 

A  curse  on  all,  one  seed  that  scatters 

Of  hope  from  death  or  Name  to  save; 

Of  all  as  earthly  Good  that  flatters. 

As  Wife  or  Child,  as  Plough  or  slave; 

A  curse  on  juice  of  Grapes  deceiving. 

On  Love's  wild  thrill  of  raptures  first; 

A  curse  on  Hoping,  on  Believing, 

And  Patience  more  than  all  be  cursed!" 

'  Ol  the  Christmas  Hymns  from  the  neighboring  church 
•'On  Suicide. 

95 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN  TRANSLATION 
OF  BURNS 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN  TRANSLATION 
OF  BURNS^ 

[  "  Exa.mmer, ' '  September,  \  840.  ] 

Genius,  like  murder,  "will  out."  Here  is  the 
Scottish  Ploughman  done  partly  into  German 
verse.  It  is  very  curious  to  see  the  old  familiar 
face  of  the  "Peasant  Thunder  God,"  as  our  own 
engravers  have  a  hundred  times  given  it  (for  want 
of  a  better  and  truer  to  give)  reproduced  here 
from  German  copper,  with  the  rugged  facsimile, 
Robert  Burns,  Poet,  engraved  by  Schwerdgeburth 
of  Weimar. 

This  man  wrote  in  the  dialect  of  obscure  peas- 
ants; as  a  ploughman  in  the  shire  of  Ayr,  as  a 
gauger  in  the  little  burgh  of  Dumfries;  but  he  has 
travelled  far  since  then.  A  polished,  almost  fas- 
tidious, Goethe  is  drawn  from  his  artistic  height 
to  comment  lovingly  on  the  fiery  son  of  Nature, 
whom  he  recognizes  for  a  brother;  and  Goethe's 
countrymen,  we  find  have  produced  /"oar  versions, 
or  select  versions,  of  him  this  summer! 

'Licder  und  Balladen  des  Schotten  Robert  Burns:  Ubcrtragcn 
von  Heinrich  Julius  Hcintze.  (Songs  and  Ballads  of  the  Scotch- 
man, Robert  Burns,  translated  by  Heinrich  Julius  Hcintze) 
Brunswick,  George  Wcstcrmann,  1840. 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN 

So  goes  it.  Let  but  any  son  of  Adam,  in  the  ob- 
scurest slough  of  human  existence,  in  the  rudest 
dialect  of  men,  utter  from  the  heart  of  him  a  gen- 
uine word, — all  sons  of  Adam  feel  it  to  ^e  genuine, 
and  will  lay  hold  of  it  as  the  undoubted  possession 
of  all.  Such  a  word,  if  it  do  come  from  the  heart, 
has  by  and  by  to  go  into  all  hearts;  to  be  repro- 
duced in  all  corners  of  the  articulate- speaking 
world;  till,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  all  man- 
kind have  got  the  good  of  it.  For  indeed,  not  this 
man  or  that  man,  but  mankind,  is  the  true  owner 
of  such  a  word; — it  was  spoken  from  the  general 
heart  that  belongs  to  us  all. 

Whether  the  Germans  mean  now  to  run  upon 
Burns,  and  produce  translation  on  translation 
of  him,  thick  as  blackberries,  —  thick  as  English 
Faust's, — we  cannot  say.  Four  in  one  summer  do 
seem  to  be  enough!  But  the  Germans  themselves 
can  look  to  that.  What  we  have  to  report  is 
that  there  are  four:  Kaufmann's  of  Berlin,  this  of 
Heintze's  from  Brunswick, — both  these  reported 
to  be  good;  then  two  others,  names  not  given, 
which  probably  are  rather  bad.  We  ourselves 
know  little  of  Kaufmann,  of  the  other  two  nothing 
at  all.  But  this  Heintze,  in  smart  blue  octavo, 
from  "the  firm  of  George  Westermann  Brauns- 
chweig,"— him  we  will  salute  with  some  kind  of 
welcome,  if  merely  as  the  first  that  has  arrived 
here. 

Considering  all  things,  it  must  be  said  that  Herr 
Heintze  has  done  his  task  in  a  decidedly  credit- 

too 


TRANSLATION  OF  BURNS 

able  manner.  The  selection  of  pieces  is  good;  if 
perhaps  not  the  best.  ''For  a  thdt/ and  a'  that/' 
is  not  one  of  the  songs  chosen;  the  .Gennitn  lati- 
tude, we  suppose,  did  not  well  admit  it.  One  could 
have  liked  to  see 

The  rank  is  but  the  guinea-stamp, 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that, 

how  it  would  have  sounded  in  German: — but 
perhaps  some  Schmidt-Phiseldeck  would  not  have 
liked  ! 

Heintze  in  general  has  seized  the  grammatical 
sense  very  correctly;  a  thing  which  in  translating 
from  Ayrshire  Scotch  cannot  always  have  been 
easy.  Neither  has  the  poetical  expression  entirely 
evaporated,  as  the  risk  was:  for  the  most  part 
there  is  a  kind  of  poetical  expression;  if  not  Burns, 
then  something  which  a  German  may  have  taken 
to  be  Burns's.  Herr  Heintze  himself  has  clearly 
some  music  in  his  head.  In  one  or  two  instances, 
of  singular  felicity,  we  have,  as  it  were,  the  very 
Burns,  with  all  his  graces  and  rhythms;  and  always, 
over  and  above  the  mere  prosaic  sense,  there  is  a 
poetic  something  which  afar  off  resembles  Burns. 
We  should  say  in  general,  that  Herr  Heintze  had 
not  always  learnt  the  tune  of  his  song.  Burns's 
songs  have  a  tune,  so  as  few  or  rather  as  no  mod- 
ern songs  we  know  of  have.  Every  thought,  every 
turn  of  phrase,  sings  itself:  the  tune  modulates  it 
all,  shapes  it  as  a  soul  does  the  body  it  is  to  dwell 
in.    The  tune  is  always  the  soul  of  a  song,  in  this 

101 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN 

sense,  that  is  to  say,' provided  the  song  be  a  true 
song,  and  have' any  soul!  As  Herr  Heintze,  it 
would  seeiT.,  purposes  to  go  on  translating  Burns, 
let  us  recommend  him  to  procure  Thomson^ s 
Collection^  or  some  such  musical  work;  and  be- 
fore entering  on  any  song,  fill  his  head  and  heart 
with  the  melody  of  it,  and  never  start  till  his  whole 
mind  is  singing  to  it; — the  words  will  then  come 
dancing  to  the  right  measure,  in  every  syllable  of 
them  a  tune.' 

*' Green  grew  the  rashes,  0,"  is  but  indifferent- 
ly given  here:  "Griin  werden  nun  die  Binsen,  O,"  is 
even  grammatically  incorrect ;  the  meaning  is  not 
that  the  rushes  are  now  becoming  green,  but  that 
they  stand  habitually  in  that  state:    "griin  wachst 

'  Remembering  Carlyle's  inability  to  write  rhythmical  verse  the 
fact  that  he  nevertheless  had  a  keen  ear  for  the  'tune'  of  rhythm 
is  noteworthy.  It  is  likely  that  he  got  the  hint  of  this  from  an 
American  correspondent  as  early  as  1838. 

When  soliciting  Carlyle's  permission  to  dedicate  to  him  the 
translation  of  Goethe  and  Schiller's  poems  the  chief  translator 
wrote:  "I  have  adopted  the  principle,  in  translating  these 
poems,  of  preserving  the  form  [or  rhythm]  always  with  the  spirit. 
Generally,  I  have  caught  the  music  [or  lilt]  of  the  piece,  and 
walked  with  it  ringing  through  me,  while  I  pondered  and  digested 
the  substance,  and  this  way  has  the  literal  imitation  become 
natural  and  free." 

Carlyle  replied,  "Your  mood  of  mind  is  the  right  one  for  the 
translator.  The  tune  of  a  poem,  especially  if  it  be  a  Goethe's 
poem,  is  the  soul  of  the  whole,  round  which  all,  the  very  thoughts 
no  less  than  the  words,  shapes  and  modulates  itself.  The  tune  is 
to  be  got  hold  of  before  anything  else  is  got.  And  yet  each  lan- 
guage has  its  genius,  its  capabilities.  Your  task  is  a  difficult  one. 
For  the  rest  there  is  no  alchemy  like  good  will." — John  Suh 
li'van  Dnvight.  A  Biography. 

102 


TRANSLATION  OF  BURNS 

das  Binsenkraut'"  gives  the  sense,  and  would  have 
also  preserved  the  tune.  However,  that  is  not  the 
worst.  Rashes^  except  as  a  kind  of  rough  rhyme 
for  lasses,  is  of  no  particular  significance;  but  as 
such  a  rhyme,  the  whole  song  rests  on  it;  and 
Heintze's  accordingly  is  either  no  song  or  another. 
A  perfect  translator  would  have  to  find  some  equiv- 
alent German  word  signifying  this  or  that,  rushes, 
ragweed, watercresses,  it  matters  little, — but  rhym" 
ing  to  "madchen"  (to  "weiberchen"  were  better), 
as  this  does  to  "lasses;"  otherwise  it  is  not  to  the 
purpose. 

Auld  Nature  swears,  the  lovely  dears 
Her  noblest  work  she  classes,  O; 
Her  'prentice  hand  she  tried  on  man, 
And  then  she  made  the  lasses  O. 
Green  grow  the  rashes  O,  &c. 

Perhaps  about  a  half  of  Herr  Heintze's  songs  arz 
decidedly  below  what  he  could  make  them,  did 
he  know  the  tune,  and  stand  honestly  by  it.  We 
have  met  grammatically  with  no  important  blunder 
but  one;  a  very  excusable  blunder,  but  of  a  rather 
sad  effect  where  it  stands.  In  " Macpherson' s 
Fare'Tveir'  Herr  Heintze  has  considered  that  those 
words,  "He  played  a  spring,  and  danced  it  round 
below  the  gallows  tree,"  must  signify  the  leap  a 
condemned  robber  gives  from  the  ladder,  and  his 
dance — alas,  too  hideous  a  dance  for  singing  of! 
**Spring"  he  did  not  know  to  mean  dancing^tune, 
which  a  man  plays  on  his  fiddle,  dancing  to  it ; 
and  so,  of  this  wild  burden, 

103 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN 

Sae  rantingly,  sae  wantonly, 

Sae  dauntingly  gaed  he; 
He  played  a  spring  and  danced  it  round 

Below  the  gallows  tree, 

Herr  Heintze  has  made  this  altogether  horrible 
one, 

So  ging  er  froh  und  Wohlgemuth, 

Und  unerschrocken  fort ; 
Ein  Sprung — dann  tantzt'er  in  der  Luft  (Ach  Go  ft!) 

Am  Galgenstamme  dort, 

But  let  US  now  by  way  of  counterpoise,  give 
Heintze's  best  translation,  the  best  we  have  fallen 
in  with:  that  of  ** Duncan  Gray/'  Readers  who 
know,  and  all  song  readers  and  singers  might  as 
well  know,  what  the  jovial,  genial  humour  of  the 
original  is,  will  find  that  it  bounds  along  with  little 
less  expressiveness  in  German  than  in  Scotch. 
"Freii/'  indeed,  is  far  inferior  as  a  singing  or 
speaking  phrase  to  *^<Tvooing  o'i;''  but  that  and 
several  other  things  we  must  even  put  up  with. 
Hear  Heintze: 

Duncan  Gray  kam  her  zu  frein, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit ! 
Als  zu  Christnacht  wir  voll  Wein, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Gretchcn  that  gewaltig  dick. 
Gab  ihm  manchen  schnoden  Blick ; 
Duncan  fuhr  erschreckt  zuriick, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit ! 

Duncan  bat  und  Duncan  fleht,' 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Sic  blieb  taub  wie  Ailsa-Craig, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Duncan  seufzt'  in  Licbesnoth, 
Wcintc  sich  die  Augcn  roth, 
104 


TRANSLATION  OF  BURNS 

Sprach  von  Strick  und  Wassertod, 
Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit ! 

Zeit  und  Gliick  sind  Ebb'  und  Fluth. 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Berschmahte  Lieb'  gar  wehe  that, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Soil  ich,  sprach  er,  wie  ein  Fant 
Sterben,  weil  sie  hirnverbrant? 
Geh  sie  doch — ins  Pfefferland  ! 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 

Wie's  nun  kam,  genug's  hat  Grund, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Sie  ward  krank — als  er  gesund. 

Ha,  ha.  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Ihren  Busen  Etwas  driickt, 
Bis  ein  Seufer  sie  erquickt, 
Und  was  aus  dem  Aug'  ihr  blickt ! 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 

Duncan  hatt'  ein  weiches  Herz, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Und  mit  Gretchen  war's  kein  Scherz, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust'ge  Freit! 
Duncan  konn't  ihr  Tod  nicht  sein, 
Und  den  Lorn  wiegt'  Mitleid  ein; 
Nun  sind  froh  sie  in  Berein, 

Ha,  ha,  die  lust  'ge  Freit! 

We  shall  be  glad  to  hear  of  Herr  Heintze's  prog- 
ress in  this  work  of  translating  Burns.  Probably 
not  more  than  half  his  songs  are  given  here;  of  his 
poems  only  some  three,  "To  the  Daisy,"'  "The 
Mouse,"  and  "Man  was  made  to  Mourn,"  an 
imperfect  sample.  To  a  man  meritoriously  bent 
on  making  Burns  known  to  his  Countrymen,  we 
would  recommend,  as  more  decisively  legible  at 
least,  the  Letters  of  Burns.    The  whole  or  part  of 

105 


HEINTZE'S  GERMAN  TRANSLATION  OF  BURNS 

these,  intercalated  at  the  due  place  in  the  Poets' 
history,  would  show  the  Germans  a  man  they 
have  not  yet  seen,  and  perhaps  would  like  to  see. 
Heintze  has  given  a  praiseworthy  sketch  by  way 
of  Life;  but  it  is  hardly  Burns  yet,  or  a  very  for- 
midably diluted  Burns.  He  quotes  Lockhart's 
Life,  but  seems  not  to  have  read  it  well.  He  has 
not  even  sufficiently  consulted  his  Goethe.  Let 
him  read  Cunningham,  Currie,  above  all,  the  Let^ 
iers  themselves;  and  then  see  what  he  does  see, 
and  what  he  has  got  to  tell  his  people  about  that. 
Right  good  speed  to  him. 


106 


INDIAN  MEAL 


INDIAN   MEAL 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  no  individual  of 
the  many  large  classes  whose  business  and  interest 
it  might  seem  to  be,  has  yet  taken  any  effective 
steps  towards  opening  to  our  population  the  im- 
mense resource  of  Indian  corn  as  an  article  of 
food.  To  all  that  have  well  considered  it,  this 
grain  seems  likely  henceforth  to  be  the  staff  of 
life  for  over-crowded  Europe;  capable  not  only  of 
replacing  the  deceased  potato  which  has  now  left 
us,  but  of  infinitely  surpassing  in  usefulness  and 
cheapness  all  that  the  potato  ever  was. 

For  general  attainability,  there  was  no  article  of 
food  ever  comparable  to  it  before;  a  grown  man, 
in  any  part  of  Europe  accessible  by  sea,  can  be 
supported  on  it,  at  this  date,  wholesomely,  and  if 
we  understood  the  business,  even  agreeably,  at 
the  rate  of  little  more  than  a  penny  a  day; — which 
surely  is  cheap  enough.  Neither,  as  the  article  is 
not  grown  at  home,  and  can  be  procured  only  by 
commerce,  need  political  economists  dread  new 
'Irish  difficulties'  from  the  cheapness  of  it.  Nor 
is  there  danger,  for  unlimited  periods  yet,  of  its 
becoming  dearer:  it  grows  in  warm  iattitudes  of 
the  earth,  profusely,  with  the  whole  impulse   of 

I  O'^ 


INDIAN    MEAL 

the  sun;  can  grow  over  huge  tracts  and  continents 
lying  vacant  hitherto,  festering  hitherto  as  pestif- 
erous jungles,  yielding  only  rattlesnakes  and  yel- 
low fever:— it  is  probable,  if  we  were  driven  to  it, 
the  planet  Earth,  sown  where  fit  with  Indian  corn, 
might  produce  a  million  times  as  much  food  as  it 
now  does,  or  has  ever  done!  In  the  single  Valley 
of  the  Mississippi  alone,  were  the  rest  of  the  earth 
all  lying  fallow,  there  could  Indian  corn  enough 
be  grown  to  support  the  whole  Posterity  of  Adam 
now  alive:  let  the  disconsolate  Malthusian  fling 
his  'geometrical  series'  into  the  corner;  assist 
wisely  in  the  'free  trade  movement;'  and  dry  up 
his  tears.  For  a  thousand  years  or  two,  there  is 
decidely  no  danger  of  our  wanting  food,  if  we  do 
not  want  good  sense  and  industry  first.  In  a  word, 
this  invaluable  foreign  corn  is  not  calculated,  as 
we  said,  to  replace  the  defunct  potato,  but  to  sur- 
pass it  a  thousand  fold  in  benefit  for  man:  and  if 
the  death  of  the  potato  have  been  the  means  of 
awakening  us  to  such  an  immeasurably  superior 
resource,  we  shall,  in  addition  to  our  sorrowful 
Irish  reasons,  have  many  joyful  English,  European, 
American  and  universal  reasons,  to  thank  Heaven 
that  the  potato  had  been  so  kind  as  to  die ! 

In  the  meanwhile,  though  extensively  employed 
in  the  British  Islands  within  these  three  years, 
Indian  corn  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  come  into 
use;  for  only  the  bungled  counterfeit  of  it  is 
hitherto  in  use;  which  may  be  well  called  not  the 
use  of  Indian  corn,  but  the  abuse  of  it.  Govern- 
no 


INDIAN    MEAL 

ment  did  indeed,  on  the  first  failure  of  the  potato, 
send  abroad  printed  papers  about  the  cooking  of 
this  article,  for  the  behoof  of  the  poor;  and  once 
I  recollect  there  circulated  in  all  the  newspapers, 
for  some  weeks,  promulgated  by  some  'Peace 
Missionary,'  a  set  of  flowery  prophetic  recipes  for 
making  Indian  meal  into  most  palatable  puddings, 
with  'quarts  of  cream,'  'six  eggs  well  whipt,'  &c., 
— ingredients  out  of  which  the  British  female  in- 
tellect used  to  make  tolerable  puddings,  even 
without  Indian  meal,  and  by  recipes  of  its  own! 
These  recipes  were  circulated  among  the  popula- 
tion,—  of  little  or  no  value,  I  now  find,  even  as 
recipes; — but  in  the  meanwhile  there  was  this 
fatal  omission  made,  that  no  Indian  meal  on  fair 
terms,  and  no  good  Indian  meal  on  any  terms  at 
all,  was  or  is  yet  attainable  among  us  to  try  by 
any  recipe.  In  that  unfortunate  condition,  I  say, 
matters  still  remain. 

The  actual  value  of  Indian  meal  by  retail  with  a 
free  demand,  is  about  one  penny  per  pound;  or 
with  a  poor  demand,  as  was  inevitable  at  first,  but 
need  not  have  been  necessary  long,  let  us  say 
three  half-pence  a  pound.  The  London  shops, 
two  years  ago,  on  extensive  inquiry,  were  found 
not  to  yield  any  of  it  under  three  pence  a  pound,— 
the  price  of  good  wheaten  flour;  somewhere  be- 
tween twice  and  three  times  the  real  cost  of 
Indian  meal.  But  farther  and  worse,  all  the  Indian 
meal  so  purchasable  was  found  to  have  a  bitter 
fusty  taste  in  it;  which,  after  multiplied  expcri- 

1 1 1 


INDIAN    MEAL 

ments,  was  not  eradicable  by  any  cookery,  though 
long  continued  boiling  in  clear  water  did  abate  it 
considerably.  Our  approved  method  of  cookery 
came  at  last  to  be,  that  of  making  the  meal  with 
either  hot  or  cold  water  into  a  thick  batter,  and 
boiling  it,  tied  up  in  linen  cloth  or  set  in  a  crockery 
shape,  for  four  or  sometimes  seven  hours; — which 
produced  a  thick  handsome-looking  pudding,  such 
as  one  might  have  hoped  would  prove  very  elegi- 
ble  for  eating  instead  of  potatoes  along  with  meat. 
Hope  however  did  not  correspond  to  experience. 
This  handsome-looking  pudding  combined  readily 
with  any  kind  of  sauce,  sweet,  spicy,  oleaginous; 
but  except  the  old  tang  of  bitterness,  it  had  little 
taste  of  its  own;  and  along  with  meat,  'it  could,' 
like  Charles  of  Sweden's  bread,  'be  eaten,'  but 
was  never  good,  at  best  was  barely  endurable. 

Yet  the  Americans  praised  their  Indian  meal; 
celebrated  its  sapid  excellencies,  and  in  Magazine- 
Novels,  as  we  could  see,  'lyrically  recognized' 
them.  Where  could  the  error  lie?  This  meal,  of 
a  beautiful  golden  colour,  equably  ground  into 
fine  hard  powder,  and  without  speck  or  admixture 
of  any  kind,  seemed  to  the  sight,  to  the  feel  and 
smell,  faultless;  only  to  the  taste  was  there  this 
ineradicable  final  bitterness,  which  in  bad  samples 
even  made  the  throat  smart;  and,  as  the  meal 
seemed  otherwise  tasteless,  acquired  for  it,  from 
unpatriotic  mockers  among  us,  the  name  of  'soot- 
and-sawdust  meal.' 

American  friends  at  last  informed  us  that  the 

I  12 


INDIAN    MEAL 

meal  was  fusty,  spoiled;  that  Indian  meal,  espe- 
cially in  warm  weather,  did  not  keep  sweet  above 
a  few  weeks;  —  that  we  ought  to  procure  Indian 
corn,  and  have  it  ground  ourselves.  Indian  corn 
was  accordingly  procured;  with  difficulty  from  the 
eastern  City  regions;  and  with  no  better  result,  nay 
with  a  worse.  How  old  the  corn  might  be  we,  of 
course,  knew  only  by  testimony  not  beyond  sus- 
picion; perhaps  it  was  corn  of  the  seconcTyear  in 
bond;  but  at  all  events  the  meal  of  it  too  was 
bitter;  and  the  new  evil  was  added  of  an  intoler- 
able mixture  of  sand;  which,  on  reflection,  we 
discovered  to  proceed  from  the  English  millstones; 
the  English  millstones,  too  soft  for  this  new  sub- 
stance, could  not  grind  it,  could  only  grind  them- 
selves and  it,  and  so  produce  a  mixture  of  meal 
and  sand.  Soot-and-sawdust  meal  with  the  ad- 
dition of  brayed  flint:  there  was  plainly  no  stand- 
ing of  this.  I  had  to  take  farewell  of  this  Indian 
meal  experiment;  my  poor  patriotic  attempt  to 
learn  eating  the  new  food  of  mankind,  had  to 
terminate  here.  My  molendinary  resources  (as 
you  who  read  my  name  will  laughingly  admit)  were 
too  small;  my  individual  need  of  meal  was  small; — 
in  fine  my  stock  of  patience  too  was  done. 

This  being  the  condition  under  which  Indian 
meal  is  hitherto  known  to  the  British  population, 
no  wonder  they  have  little  love  for  it,  no  wonder 
it  has  got  a  bad  name  among  them!  'Soot-and- 
sawdust  meal,  with  an  admixture  of  brayed  flint:' 
this  is  not  a  thing  to  fall  in  love  with;  nothing  but 

I  13 


INDIAN   MEAL 

starvation  can  well  reconcile  a  man  to  this.  The 
starving  Irish  paupers,  we  accordingly  find,  do  but 
eat  and  curse;  complain  loudly  that  their  meal  is 
unwholesome;  that  it  is  bad  and  bitter;  that  it  is 
this  and  that; — to  all  of  which  there  is  little  heed 
paid,  and  the  official  person  has  to  answer  with  a 
shrug  of  the  shoulders.  In  the  unwholesomeness, 
except  perhaps  for  the  defect  of  boiling,  I  do  not 
at  all  believe;  but  as  to  the  bitter  uncooked  un- 
palatability  my  evidence  is  complete. 

Well  three  days  ago  I  received,  direct  from  the 
barn  of  an  American  friend,  as  it  was  stored  there 
last  autumn,  a  small  barrel  of  Indian  corn  in  the 
natural  state;  large  ears  or  cobs  of  Indian  corn, 
merely  stripped  of  the  loose  leaves.  On  each  ear, 
which  is  of  the  obelisk  shape,  about  the  size  of  a 
large  thick  truncated  carrot,  there  are  perhaps 
five  hundred  grains,  arranged  in  close  order  in 
their  eight  columns;  the  colour  gold-yellow,  or  in 
some  cases  with  a  flecker  of  blood-red.  These 
grains  need  to  be  rubbed  off,  and  ground  by  some 
rational  miller,  whose  millstones  are  hard  enough 
for  the  work:  that  is  all  the  secret  of  preparing 
them.  And  here  comes  the  important  point. 
This  grain,  I  now  for  the  first  time  find,  is  s<vjeei, 
among  the  sweetest;  with  an  excellent  fine  rich 
taste  something  like  that  of  nuts;  indeed  it  seems 
to  me,  perhaps  from  novelty  in  part,  decidely 
sweeter  than  wheat,  or  any  other  grain  I  have 
ever  tasted.  So  that,  it  v/ould  appear,  all  our  ex- 
periments   hitherto   on   Indian    meal    have   been 

I  14 


INDIAN   MEAL 

vitiated  to  the  heart  by  a  deadly  original  sin,  or 
fundamental  falsity  to  start  with ; — as  if  on  experi- 
menting on  Westphalian  ham,  all  the  ham  present- 
ed hitherto  to  us  for  trial  had  been — in  a  rancid 
state.  The  difference  between  ham  and  rancid 
ham  M.  Soyer  well  knows,  is  considerable !  This 
is  the  difference  however,  this  highly  considerable 
one,  we  have  had  to  encounter  hitherto  in  all  our 
experiences  of  Indian  meal.  Ground  by  a  reason- 
able miller,  who  grinds  it  and  not  his  millstones 
along  with  it,  this  grain,  I  can  already  promise, 
will  make  excellent,  cleanly,  wholesome,  and  pala- 
table eating;  and  be  fit  for  the  cook's  art  under  all 
manner  of  conditions;  ready  to  combine  with 
whatever  judicious  condiment,  and  reward  what- 
ever wise  treatment,  he  applies  to  it:  and  indeed 
on  the  whole,  I  should  say  a  more  promising 
article  could  not  well  be  submitted  to  him,  if  his 
art  is  really  a  useful  one. 

These  facts,  in  a  time  of  potato  failures,  appre- 
hension of  want,  and  occasional  fits  of  wide-spread 
too-authentic  want  and  famine,  when  M.  Soyer 
has  to  set  about  concocting  miraculously  cheap 
soup,  and  the  Government  to  make  enormous 
grants  and  rates-in-aid,  seem  to  me  of  a  decidedly 
comfortable  kind; — well  deserving  practical  in- 
vestigation by  the  European  Soyers,  Governments, 
Poor-law  Boards,  Mendicity  Societies,  Friends  of 
Distressed  Needlewomen,  and  Friends  of  the  Hu- 
man Species,  who  are  gotten  sadly  in  alarm  as  to 
the  'food  prospects,' — and  who  will  have,  if  they 

I  15 


INDIAN   MEAL 

will  clear  the  entrance,  a  most  extensive  harbour 
of  refuge.  Practical  English  enterprise,  indepen- 
dent of  benevolence,  might  now  find,  and  will  by 
and  bye  have  to  find,  in  reference  to  this  foreign 
article  of  food,  an  immense  development.  And 
as  for  specially  benevolent  bodies  of  men,  whose 
grand  text  is  'food  prospects,'  they,  I  must  declare, 
are  wandering  in  darkness  with  broad  day  beside 
them,  till  they  teach  us  to  get  Indian  meal,  such 
as  our  American  cousins  get,  that  we  may  eat  it 
with  thanks  to  Heaven  as  they  do.  New  food, 
whole  continents  of  food; — and  not  rancid  ham, 
but  the  actual  sound  Westphalia !  To  this  con- 
summation we  must  come;  there  is  no  other  har- 
bour of  refuge  for  hungry  populations: — but  all  the 
distressed  population  fleets  and  disconsolate  Mal- 
thusians  of  the  world  may  ride  there;  and  surely 
it  is  great  pity  the  entrance  were  not  cleared  a 
little,  and  a  few  buoys  set  up,  and  soundings  taken 
by  competent  persons. 

C. 

18th  of  April,  1849. 


116 


A  LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR 
OF  THE  TIMES 


A  LETTER  TO  THE  EDITOR 
OF  THE  TIMES 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Times. 

Sir:— 

The  following  document,  and  the  proposal  or 
appeal  now  grounded  on  it,  require  to  be  made 
known  to  the  British  public,  for  which  object  we, 
as  the  course  is  apply  to  the  Editor  of  "The 
Times." 

In  the  month  of  May  last  there  was  presented  to 
Lord  Palmerston,  as  head  of  Her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment, a  memorial  on  behalf  of  a  certain  Miss 
Lowe  and  her  sister,  which  memorial  will  suffi- 
ciently explain  itself,  and  indicate  who  the  Misses 
Lowe  are,  to  those  who  read  it  here:^ — 

"The  undersigned  beg  respectfully  to  submit  to 
Lord  Palmerston  a  statement  of  reasons  which 
appear  to  them  to  constitute,  on  behalf  of  the  two 
aged  surviving  daughters  of  Mauritius  Lowe,  there- 
in described,  a  claim  to  such  small  yearly  pension 
as  in  your  Lordship's  judgement  may  consist  with 
other  demands  for  the  ensuing  year,  upon  the 
fund  appropriate  to  literature. 

"In  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson's  last  will  is  this  pas- 

I  19 


A  LETTER  TO  THE 

sage, — 'I  also  give  and  bequeath  to  my  godchildren, 
the  son  and  daughter  of  Mauritius  Lowe,  painter, 
each  of  them  £  JOO  of  my  stock  in  the  Three  per 
Cent.  Consolidated  Annuities,  to  be  disposed  of 
by  and  at  the  discretion  of  my  executors  in  the 
education  or  settlement  in  the  world  of  them  my 
said  legatees.' 

"The  Mauritius  Lowe  mentioned  here,  who  was 
once  a  man  of  great  promise  in  his  art,  favorably 
know  in  the  Royal  Academy  and  in  the  world  as 
a  man  of  refined  manners  and  real  talent  and 
worth  (though  probably  with  something  of  morbid 
or  over-sensitive  in  his  character),  died  ten  years 
after  Johnson  without  fulfilling  the  high  hopes  en- 
tertained of  him.  The  godson,  or  younger  Lowe, 
mentioned  in  the  will,  who  at  one  time  (J8J0-J3) 
appears  to  have  held  some  small  appointment  in 
Barbadoes,  creditably  to  himself,  but  with  loss  of 
health — the  crown  and  consummation  of  other 
losses  he  had  met  with — is  also  long  since  dead. 
Of  these  Lowes  and  their  hopes  and  struggles 
there  is  now  nothing  to  be  said.  They  are  sunk 
under  the  horizon.  Nor  can  they  pretend  to  have 
any  hold  of  the  world's  memory  except  what  is 
derived  from  their  father's  intimacy  with  Johnson, 
of  which  and  of  Johnson's  helpfulness  and  real 
esteem  and  affection  for  the  man  there  are  still 
abundant  proofs,  printed  and  not  printed,  beside 
this  of  the  will. 

"But  the  goddaughter  mentioned  in  the  will  has 
not  yet  sunk  under  the  horizon.    She  still  survives 

120 


EDITOR  OF  THE  TIMES 

among  us,  a  highly  respectable  old  person,  now  in 
the  78th  year,  with  all  her  faculties  about  her,  liv- 
ing with  her  younger  sister,  aged  72,  the  only 
other  remnant  of  the  family,  in  a  house  they  long 
occupied — No.  5,  Minerva  place,  New  Cross,  Dept- 
ford  —  with  numerous  memorials  of  Johnson  in 
their  possession,  which  vividly  bring  home  to  us 
and  present  us  a  still  living  fact,  their  connection 
with  that  great  man.  They  have  lived  there  for 
many  years  in  rigorous  though  not  undignified 
poverty,  which  nov/,  by  some  unforseen  circum- 
stances, theatens  to  become  absolute  indigence  in 
these  their  final  years. 

"They  are  gentlewomen  in  manners;  by  all  evi- 
dence, persons  of  uniformly  unexceptionable  con- 
duct; veracity,  sense,  ingenious  propriety,  notice- 
able in  them  both,  to  a  superior  degree.  The 
elder,  especially,  must  have  been  a  graceful  lively 
little  woman,  something  of  a  beauty  in  her  younger 
days,  and  by  no  means  wanting  for  talent.  She 
still  recollects  in  a  dim  but  ineffacable  manner 
the  big,  awful  figure  of  Samuel  Johnson,  to  whom 
she  was  carried  shortly  before  his  death,  that  he 
might  lay  his  hand  on  her  head  and  give  her  his 
blessing;  her  awe  and  terror  very  great  on  the 
occasion.  Both  sisters  are  in  perfect  possession  of 
their  faculties — the  younger  only  is  slightly  hard 
of  hearing;  the  elder  (on  whose  head  lay  Johnson's 
hand)  has  still  a  light  step,  perfectly  erect  carriage, 
and  vivacious  memory  and  intellect.  The  younger, 
who   is   of   very    honest    and   somewhat    sterner 

121 


A  LETTER  TO  THE 

features,  appears  to  be  the  practical  intellect  of 
the  house,  and  probably  the  practical  hand.  They 
are  very  poor,  but  have  taken  their  poverty  in  a 
quiet,  unaffectedly  handsome  manner,  and  have 
still  hope  that,  in  some  way  or  other,  intolerable 
want  will  not  be  permitted  to  overtake  them. 
They  have  an  altogether  respectable,  or,  we  might 
say  (bringing  the  past  and  the  present  into  con- 
tact), a  touching  and  venerable  air.  There,  in 
their  little  parlor  at  Deptford,  is  the  fir  desk 
(capable  of  being  rigorously  authenticated  as  such) 
upon  which  Samuel  Johnson  wrote  the  'English 
Dictionary;'  the  best  dictionary  ever  written,  say 
some. 

"  It  is  in  behalf  of  these  two  women,  of  Johnson's 
goddaughter  fallen  old  and  indigent,  that  we  vent- 
ure to  solicit  from  the  Government,  some  small 
public  subvention,  to  screen  their  last  years  from 
the  worst  misery.  It  may  be  urged  that  there  is  no 
public  fund  appropriated  for  such  precise  objects, 
and  that  their  case  cannot,  except  in  a  reflex  way, 
be  brought  under  the  head  of  'literary  pensions;' 
but,  in  a  reflex  way,  it  surely  can;  and  we  humbly 
submit  withal,  that  this  case  of  theirs  is,  in  some 
measure,  a  peculiar  and  unique  one. 

"Samuel  Johnson  is  such  a  literary  man  as  prob- 
ably will  not  appear  again  in  England  for  a  very 
great  length  of  time.  His  works  and  his  life, 
looked  at  well,  have  something  in  them  of  heroic, 
which  is  of  value  beyond  most  literature,  and 
much  beyond  all  money  and  money's  worth  to  the 

122 


EDITOR  OF  THE  TIMES 

nation  which  produced  him.  That  same  'English 
Dictionary,'  written  on  the  poor  fir  desk  above 
spoken  of,  under  sternly  memorable  circumstances, 
is  itself  a  proud  possession  to  the  English  nation, 
and  not  in  the  philological  point  of  view  alone. 
Such  a  dictionary  has  an  architectonic  quality  in 
it;  and  for  massive  solidity  of  plan,  manful  correct- 
ness and  fidelity  of  execution,  luminous  intelli- 
gence, rugged  honesty  and  greatness  of  mind 
pervading  every  part  of  it,  is  like  no  other.  This, 
too,  is  a  Cathedral  of  St,  Paul's^  after  its  sort; 
and  stands  there  for  long  periods,  silently  remind- 
ing every  English  soul  of  much  that  is  very  neces- 
sary to  remember. 

"Samuel  Johnson  himself  is  far  beyond  the  reach 
of  our  gratitude.  He  has  left  no  child  or  repre- 
sentative of  any  kind  to  claim  pensions  or  distinc- 
tions from  us;  and  here,  by  accident,  thrown  upon 
the  waste  sea  beach,  is  something  venerably  human 
with  Johnson's  mark  still  legible  upon  it;  Johnson 
as  it  were,  mutely  bequeathing  it  to  us,  and  to 
what  humanity  and  loyalty  we  have,  for  the  few 
years  that  may  be  still  be  left.  Our  humble  request 
in  the  name  of  literature  withal,  is  that  the  English 
nation  will,  in  some  small  adequate  way,  respond 
to  this  demand  of  Johnson's. 

[The  letter  is  signed  by  Henry  Hallam,  James 
Stephen,  S.  Oxon,  Thomas  Carlyle,  Alexander 
Dyce,  B.  W.  Proctor,  C.  L.  Eastlake,  John  Forster, 
T.  B.  Macaulay,  W.  M.  Thackeray,  Alfred  Ten- 
nyson, A.  W.  Fonblanque,   Charles   Dickens,  E. 

123 


A  LETTER  TO  THE 

Bulwer  Lytton,  G.  R.  Gleig,  Richard  Owen,  R.  E. 
Murchison,  B.  Disraeli,  and  H.  H.  Milman. 

Beyond  question  the  only  document  in  Great 
Britain  that  out-shines  the  parchment  of  Runny- 
mede — in  the  right  hght !] 

To  this  memorial  his  Lordship  made  answer, 
with  great  courtesy  and  without  undue  delay, 
that  the  fund  set  apart  for  the  encouragement  of 
literature  could  not  be  meddled  with  for  a  pension 
to  the  goddaughter  of  Johnson;  but  that,  in  con- 
sideration of  the  circumstances,  his  Lordship,  from 
some  other  fund,  had  made  her  a  donation  of  £  JOO, 
which  sum  of  £J00  was  accordingfy  paid  to  Miss 
Lowe  in  June  last — a  very  welcome  gift  and  help — 
all  that  the  Prime  Minister  could  do  in  this  matter, 
and,  unfortunately,  only  about  the  fifth  part  of 
what  was,  and  is,  indispensible  to  get  done. 

It  was  still  hoped  that  the  last  resource  of  an 
appeal  to  the  public  might  be  avoided;  that  there 
might  be  other  Government  helps,  minute  chari- 
table funds,  adequate  to  this  small  emergency. 
And  new  endeavours  were  accordingly  made  in 
in  that  direction,  and  new  expectations  enter- 
tained; but  these  likewise  have  all  proved  ineffect- 
ual: and  the  resulting  fact  now  is,  that  there  is 
still  needed  something  like  an  annuity  of  £30  for 
the  joint  lives  of  these  two  aged  persons;  that, 
strictly  computing  what  pittances  certain  and 
precarious  they  already  have,  and  what  they 
still  want,  their  case  cannot  be  satisfactorily  left 
on  lower  terms— that  is   to   say,  about  £400,  to 

124 


EDITOR  OF  THE  TIMES 

purchase  such  an  annuity,  is  still  needed  for  them. 

If  the  thing  is  half  as  English  as  we  suppose  it  to 
be,  a  small  pecuniary  result  of  that  kind  is  not 
doubtful,  now  when  the  application  is  once  made. 
At  all  events,  as  the  English  Government  is  not 
able  to  do  this  thing,  we  are  now  bound  to  apprise 
the  English  nation  of  it,  and  to  ask  the  English 
nation  in  its  miscellaneous  capacity — Are  you 
willing  to  do  it  ? 

Messrs.  Coutts,  bankers,  will  receive  subscrip- 
tions from  such  as  feel  that  this  is  a  valid  call  upon 
English  beneficence;  and  we  have  too  much 
reverence  for  Samuel  Johnson,  and  for  the  present 
generation  of  his  countrymen,  to  use  any  solicit- 
ing or  ignoble  pressure  on  the  occasion.  So  soon 
as  the  requisite  amount  has  come  in,  the  subscrip- 
tions will  cease;  of  which  due  notice  will  be  given. 

We  are.  Sir,  your  obedient  servants, 

Thomas  Carlyle. 
Charles  Dickens. 
John  Forster. 

Athenaeum  Club,  Oct.  31  [1855]. 


125 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

The  year  of  Grace,  1820,  found  Thomas  Carlyle 
at  Edingburgh,  a  plucky  post-graduate,  in  the 
twenty-fifth  year  of  his  age  and  with  the  world 
before  him.  He  had  forsworn  Pedagogy  when 
himself  and  Edward  Irving  left  'the  lang  toun  of 
Kircaldy'  behind  them.  Unlike  his  companion,  he 
had  also  turned  his  back  on  the  Church — that 
summum  bonum  of  the  needy  Scotch  scholar.  He 
was  also  destined  to  shake  his  head  at  the  Law. 
He  took  humble  lodgings  at  No.  3  Moray  Street, 
and  sought  to  earn  his  sustenance  as  a  private 
teacher  of  Mathematics.  A  fortunate  introduction 
to  David  Brewster  led  that  learned  quid  nunc  to 
offer  him  work  in  the  preparation  of  the  forth- 
coming Edingburgh  Encyclopaedia;  and  thus 
Thomas  Carlyle  became  an  'entered  apprentice' 
to  Literature.  He  had  found  his  life-work  without 
knowing  it ! 

He  wrote  seventeen  articles  for  his  first  Task- 
master, and,  as  Brewster  himself  alloted  the  topics, 
one  can  but  wonder  if  he  foresaw  the  unfolded 
capabilities  of  his  impecunious  scribe  —for  twelve 

129 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

of  these  contributions  are  biographical.  But  Car- 
lyle  then  wrote  in  shackles,  being  limited  to  some- 
what meagre  space,  and  he  found  the  work  not 
only  incongenial,  but  of  niggardly  recompense;  he 
often  makes  mention  of  it  in  the  correspondence 
of  those  days  with  something  between  a  groan 
and  a  curse.  He  had  no  previous  literary  experi- 
ence save  as  a  rather  voluminous  correspondent 
with  schoolday  friends,  and  he  had  not  yet  settled 
into  a  'style.'  Beside  his  University  training, 
which,  it  must  be  said,  he  held  but  lightly,  his 
only  qualifications  were  an  unusal  store  of  multi- 
farious reading  —  for  he  was  ever  liberivorous  — 
and  the  higher  qualities  of  industry,  self-reliance, 
courage  and  an  indomitable  will.  It  remained  to 
be  seen  what  might  be  the  freak  of  heredity  in  his 
case;  whether  he  would  inherit  the  paternal  apti- 
tude for  using  words  in  a  singularly  forceful  man- 
ner; his  unlettered  father's  utterance  being  said  to 
be  of  such  vigor  as  to  "nail  things  to  the  wall." 
His  first  contribution  to  the  Encyclopaedia  is 
the  article  on  Montaigne;  and  it  is  noteworthy 
that  of  all  who  have  written  of  Carlyle,  our  own 
Lowell  is  the  first  who  appears  to  have  "sought 
the  sources  of  the  Nile."  He  wrote:  "Carlyle,  in 
these  first  Essays,  already  shows  the  influence  of 
his  master,  Goethe,  the  most  receptive  of  all 
critics."  At  that  early  period  of  Carlyle's  career 
Goethe  could  hardly  be  called  an  'influence'  inas- 

130 


CARLYLE'S   APPRENTICESHIP 

much  as  his  fervent  Scottish  disciple  had  began 
the  study  of  German  only  a  year  before  the  brief 
essay  was  written.  Lowell  continues,  "in  a  com- 
pact notice  of  Montaigne,  there  is  not  a  word  as 
to  his  religious  scepticism.  The  character  is 
looked  at  from  its  human  and  literary  sides."  The 
American  critic  did  not  read  closely  or  he  would 
have  found  that  Carlyle  had  discerned  an  insin^ 
cf'rity  in  the  Gascon's  scepticism;  which  fact 
clearly  proves  that  Thomas  Carlyle's  detestation 
of  Shams  was  nascent  and  by  no  means  the  assum- 
ed quality  of  a  later  day. 

But  let  us  take  a  closer  look  at  Carlyle's  'pren- 
tice work.  Of  the  "Gascon  gentleman's"  Esszys 
he  writes: 

"In  this  singular  production,  Montaigne  com- 
pletely fulfils  the  promise  of  painting  himself  in 
his  natural  and  simple  mood,  without  study  or 
artifice.  And  though  Scalinger  might  perhaps 
reasonably  ask,  'what  matters  it  whether  Mon- 
taigne liked  white  wine  or  claret?' — a  modern 
reader  will  not  easily  cavil  at  the  patient  and  good- 
natured,  though  exuberant,  egotism  which  brings 
back  to  our  view  the  "form  and  pressure  of  a  time 
long  past."  The  habits  and  humours;  the  mode 
of  acting  and  thinking  which  characterized  a  Gas- 
con gentleman  in  the  sixteenth  century,  cannot 
fail  to  amuse  an  enquirer  of  the  nineteenth,  while 
the  faithful  delineation  of  human  feelings  in  all 
their  strength  and  weakness,  will  serve  as  a  mirror 
to  every  mind  capable  of  self-examination.    But  if 

131 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

details,  otherwise  frivolous,  are  pardoned,  because 
of  the  antique  charm  which  is  about  them,  no  ex- 
cuse or  even  apology  of  a  satisfactory  kind  can  be 
devised  for  the  gross  indelicacy  which  frequently 
deforms  these  Essays;  and  as  Montaigne,  by  an 
abundant  store  of  bold  ideas  and  a  deep  insight 
into  the  principles  of  our  common  nature,  deserves 
to  be  ranked  high  among  the  great  men  of  his  own 
original  age,  he  also  deserves  the  bad  pre-eminence 
in  love  at  once  of  coarseness  and  obscenity. 

"The  desultory,  careless  mode  in  which  the 
materials  of  the  Essays  are  arranged,  indicates  a 
feature  of  the  author's  character  to  which  his 
style  has  hkewise  a  resemblance.  With  him,  more 
than  with  any  other,  words  may  be  called  the 
garment  of  thought;  the  expression  is  frequently 
moulded  to  fit  the  idea,  never  the  idea  to  fit  the 
expression.  The  negligence  and  occasional  ob- 
scurity of  his  manner  are  more  than  compensated 
by  the  warmth  of  an  imagination,  bestowing  on 
his  language  a  nervousness  and  often  a  pictu- 
resque beauty  which  we  would  seek  in  vain  else- 
where." 

One  can  but  surmise  whether  David  Brewster 
ever  for  a  moment  turned  aside  from  the  scientific 
aridities  of  the  Encyclopaedia  to  admire  the  criti- 
cal sagacity  of  his  obscure  contributor:  neverthe- 
less no  truer  judgement  has  ever  been  written  of 
Montaigne  than  that  his  'words  may  be  called  the 
garment  of  thought.'  Surely,  the  spirit  of  Diogenes 
Teufelsdrockh  was  a-stirring  even  then! 

In  even  his  appenticeship  Carlyle's  eye  was  keen 

132 


CARLYLE'S   APPRENTICESHIP 

for  the  dramatic  and  he  seized  upon  an  incident 
of  Montaigne's  death-hour: 

"The  disorder  had  deprived  him  of  the  use  of 
speech;  but  as  his  mental  faculties  remained  un- 
impaired, he  desired  his  wife,  in  writing,  to  send 
for  certain  of  his  neighbors  that  he  might  bid 
them  farewell.  After  the  arrival  of  these  persons 
mass  was  said  in  his  chamber.  At  the  elevation  of 
the  host,  Montaigne,  with  an  effort  raised  himself 
upon  his  bed,  and  clasping  his  hands  together, 
expired  in  that  pious  attitude. 

"The  character  of  Montaigne  is  amply  delineat- 
ed in  his  Essays.  On  contemplating  this  picture, 
we  are  surprised  to  find  the  principles  of  a  stoic 
incongruously  mingled  with  the  practice  of  an 
epicure;  and  the  pillo'w  of  doubt,  upon  which 
during  the  flow  of  health  he  professed  to  repose, 
exchanged  in  sickness  for  the  opiates  of  supersti- 
tion." 

"There  is  not  a  word  as  to  his  religious  scepti- 
cism," but  there  is  an  unmistakable  recognition  of 
its  quality.  It  is  highly  probable  that  Carlyle 
wrote  this  paper  with  a  keener  zest  than  he  found 
in  preparing  any  of  the  others  —  but  who  could 
predict  the  Lectures  on  Heroes  from  such  a  be- 
ginning? 

The  exigencies  of  the  alphabetical  order  of  ar- 
rangement adopted  in  the  Encyclopaedia,  de- 
manded from  Carlyle  the  article  on  Lady  Mary 
Worthy  Montagu,  In  it  one  sees  that  he  was 
restricted  to  narrow  limits,  but  he  nevertheless  so 

133 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

manages  his  materials  as  to  justify  Lowell's  pro- 
nouncing his  work  compact.  He  gives  a  fair 
bird's-eye  view  of  Lady  Mary's  varied  life,  but 
athwart  his  periods  we  discern  no  shadow  of  the 
facile  workman  of  his  riper  years.  Of  her  Poems 
he  writes  awkwardly  enough:  "They  are  not  pol- 
ished, but  across  their  frequent  harshness  and 
infelicity  of  expression  we  can  easily  discern  con- 
siderable vivacity  of  conception  [it  is  not  difficult 
to  believe  that  she  could  be  vivacious  even  in 
conceiving],  accompanied  with  some  acuteness  in 
discriminating  character  and  delineating  man- 
ners." How  the  fastidious  De  Quincey  would  have 
scored  him  for  his  'across,'  'vivacity  of  concep- 
tion,' and  like  Scotticisms.  But  Carlyle  in  sum- 
ming up  her  distinguishing  characteristics  says 
very  discriminatingly:  "She  seems  to  have  been 
contented  with  herself,  and  therefore  willing  to  be 
pleased  with  others;  and  her  cheerful  sprightly 
imagination,  the  elegance,  the  ease,  and  airness 
of  her  style  are  deservedly  admired."  A  more 
felicitous  epithet  than  airiness,  in  this  instance,  it 
were  difficult  to  apply;  and  his  general  judgement 
of  her  is  clear  and  just. 

There  is  no  need  to  exhume  the  respectable 
mediocrity  that  is  mouldering  in  the  papers  on 
Montesque,  and  Bernard  de  Montfaucon;  but  the 
latter  contains  a  metaphor  which  is  in  striking 
contrasy  with  the  perspicuity  of  Carlyle's  matured 

I  34 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

expression:  "The  character  originally  impressed 
upon  Montfaucon's  genius,  though  obscured,  was 
not  obliterated."  In  youth,  it  appears,  Montfau- 
con  evinced  the  qualities  that  give  promise  of  a 
student's  life;  in  early  manhood  he  took  up  the 
profession  of  arms,  and  only  after  a  seasoning 
period  returned  to  Letters. 

A  similar  clumsiness  is  found  in  the  article  upon 
Nelson:  "The  victory  at  Trafalgar,  the  greatest 
ever  gained,  completed  the  fabric  which  a  succes- 
sion of  brave  men,  since  the  time  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, had  been  slowly  rearing  with  their  toils  and 
their — blood."  It  is  more  than  difficult  to  imagine 
the  author  of  the  Life  of  John  Sterling  writing 
this. 

The  Netherlands,  the  longest  and  ablest  of  his 
Encyclopaedia  work,  gives  evidence  of  much 
carefully-digested  reading  and  patient  research 
and  it  well  displays  Carlyle's  capacity  for  faithful 
toil;  but  we  are  concerned  only  with  his  style,  and 
the  following  specimen  little  presages  The  French 
Re'volution:  "Posterity  have  learned,  with  a  kind 
of  satisfaction,  that  in  his  old  age  Charles  himself 
began  to  doubt  that  the  spirit  which  had  never 
felt  for  the  fate  of  another,  was  doomed  in  its 
feebleness  to  experience  the  blackest  terrors  for 
its  own  fate,  and  to  leave  the  world  it  had  wasted 
and  deformed  under  a  iveight  of  blood  which 
superstition  itself  could  no  longer  alleviate." 

135 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

The  immediately  succeeding  effort — on  Nctu" 
found  land — contains  one  faint  flicker  of  that 
humor  which  was  to  blaze  brightly  in  his  later 
pages:  "Mr.  Anspach,  a  clerical  person  who  lived 
in  the  island  several  years,  and  has  since  written  a 
meagre  and  very  confused  book  which  he  calls 
a  history  of  it."  Incontinently,  Carlyle  cooly  pro- 
ceeds to  appropriate  eleven  lengthy  paragraphs 
from  the  unfortunate  'clerical  person's'  history. 
Why  is  it  that  of  all  cynics,  your  clerical  recalci- 
trant is  ever  the  severest  upon  the  Cloth  ?  Carlyle 
never  'wagged  hispowin  a  poupit;'  Emerson  had. 
Remembering  this,  Carlyle  squirted  venom  upon 
'the  black  dragoons'  in  season  and  out;  Emerson's 
velvet  gloves  did  not  hinder  the  sharp  nails  from 
occasionally  scratching.  Was  it  the  Jordan  that 
rotted  betiveen  the  unfrocked,  the  non-frocked, 
and  the  sacerdotal  shrine?' 

Carlyle  must  have  lingered  lovingly  over  his 
picture  of  his  fellow  Scot,  Mungo  Park,  the  in- 
trepid traveller.  The  warmth  of  his  admiration 
must  have  stirred  the  germ  of  the  perfervid  'Hero- 
Worship'  that  was  to  astonish  not  only  London  a 
score  of  years  later  on.  Carlyle  instinctively  dis- 
cerned the  intrinsic  worth  in  a  Man  and  was  not 
deceived  by  the  meretricious.    Of  Mungo  Park's 

^  "  So  to  the  Jews  old  Canaan  stood 

V/hile  Jordan  rolled  between." 

136 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

Travels  the  son  of  the  Eclefechan  stone-mason 
was  moved  to  declare: 

"We  are  shocked  with  the  view  of  such  extreme 
wretchedness  endured  with  so  Httle  advantage  to 
repay  it.  But  the  character  of  Park  cannot  fail  to 
rise  in  our  estimation  from  perusing  it.  The  same 
qualities  of  calm  intrepidity,  strong  resolution,  and 
unaffected  kindliness  which  his  former  journey 
had  brought  to  light,  are  here  exhibited  under  cir- 
cumstances of  a  deeper  and  more  painful  interest; 
and  the  friends  of  geographical  discovery,  while 
they  lament  the  loss  of  a  person  every  way  so 
qualified  to  have  extended  its  boundaries,  will  be 
joined  by  the  admirers  of  human  worth  in  deplor- 
ing the  fate  of  a  man  whose  energetic  yet  affec- 
tionate character  did  honor  to  the  country  that 
gave  him  birth 

"Park  may  be  pointed  out  as  one  of  the  most 
unpretending,  and  at  the  same  time  valuable, 
specimens  of  humanity  that  embellish  the  age  and 
country  in  which  he  lived." 

There  is  a  fervent  glow  in  this  that  is  not  to  be 
found  in  any  of  Carlyle's  other  contributions  to 
the  Encyclopaedia.  He  had  written  therein  upon 
Lord  Nelson,  who  not  so  long  before  had  died  in 
the  halo  of  glory,  but  his  faint  and  qualified  fervor 
is  forced;  whilst  for  one  who  perished  miserably 
in  the  wilds  of  Africa,  resolutely  doing  his  duty, 
he  has  a  tenderness  that  stops  short  of  the  tear 
only  for  the  sake  of  manful  pride.  But  his  eye 
was  not  undimmed  when  he  read  Park's  last  letter 

137 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

to  Lord  Camden:  "My  dear  friend  Mr.  Anderson, 
and  likewise  Mr.  Scott,  are  both  dead;  but  though 
all  the  Europeans  who  are  with  me  should  die, 
and  though  I  were  myself  half  dead,  I  would  still 
persevere;  and  if  I  could  not  succeed  in  the  object 
of  my  journey,  I  would  at  least  die  on  the  Niger." 

A  man  with  a  deathless  purpose;  him  Carlyle 
the  hack-writer  could  revere,  and  Carlyle  'the 
writer  of  books,'  defend  and  magnify.  This  did 
he  for  the  Christian  Cromwell  and  Mohammet 
the  Infidel. 

Carlyle's  Encyclopaedia,  task-work  was  done 
between  the  years  J820-23,  and  meanwhile  the 
budding  reputation  thereby  acquired  procured  for 
him  an  engagement  as  an  avowed  tiiterateur  from 
the  editor  of  the  Ne<zv  Edinburgh  Re'vie<w*  "Jo- 
anna Baillie's  Metrical  Legends"  incited,  if  they 
did  not  inspire,  Carlyle's  first  spontaneous  "re- 
view." 

Six  months  later  and  in  the  same  magazine  this 
was  followed  by  a  decidedly  authoritative  utterance 
concerning  an  English  publisher's  rechauffe  of 
Goethe's  masterpiece;  ^^Faustus,  From  the  Ger- 
man of  Goethe."  Carlyle  had  made  his  debut;  he 
was,  to  be  sure,  still  a  hack-writer,  but  it  was  as  a 
volunteer,  not  a  conscript.  These  efforts  and  his 
work  on  the  Encyclopaedia  served  to  bring  the 
young  aspirant  into  notice,  and  towards  the  end 
of  the  year  J823  his  Life  of  Schiller  vfas  being 

138 


CARLYLE'S   APPRENTICESHIP 

published  in  The  London  Magazine,  The  two 
papers  in  Waugh's  ill-omened  Edinburgh  Re-vieiv 
Carlyle  allowed  to  lie  quietly  buried  in  the  ob- 
scurity of  that  speedily-defunct  journal;  but  he 
lived  to  see  the  Life  of  Schiller  reproduced  in  a 
German  translation  and  also  in  its  fifth  English 
edition.  He  spake  slightingly  of  this  his  first 
"book,"  but  the  London  Times  at  once  reprinted 
the  introduction  to  Part  Second;  quickly  discern- 
ing a  new  star  in  the  firmanent  of  Letters. 

It  is  a  stately  opening,  but  Carlyle  had  not  yet 
found  his  marvelous  voice: 

"If  to  know  wisdom  were  to  practice  it;  if  fame 
brought  true  dignity  and  peace  of  mind;  or  hap- 
piness consisted  in  nourishing  intellect  with  ideal 
food,  a  literary  life  would  be  the  most  enviable 
which  the  lot  of  this  world  affords.    But  the  truth 

is  far  otherwise Look  at  the  Newgate 

Calendar,  it  is  the  most  sickening  chapter  in  the 
history  of  man 

"Talent  of  any  sort  is  generally  accompanied 
with  a  peculiar  fineness  of  sensibility;  of  genius  this 
is  the  most  essential  constituent;  and  life  in  any 
shape  has  sorrows  enough  for  hearts  so  formed. 
The  employments  of  literature  sharpen  this  natural 
tendency;  the  vexations  that  accompany  them 
frequently  exasperate  it  into  morbid  sourness. 
The  cares  and  toils  of  literature  are  the  business 
of  life;  its  delights  are  too  etherial  and  too  tran- 
sient to  furnish  that  perennial  flow  of  satisfaction, 
coarse,  but  plenteous   and  substantial,  of  which 

139 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

happiness  in  this  world  of  ours  is  made.  The 
most  finished  efforts  of  the  mind  give  it  little 
pleasure,  frequently  they  give  it  pain;  for  men's 
aims  are  ever  far  beyond  their  strength.  And  the 
outward  recompense  of  these  undertakings,  the 
distinctions  which  they  confer,  is  of  still  smaller 
value;  the  desire  for  it  is  insatiable  even  when 
successful;  and  when  baffled,  it  issues  in  jealousy 
and  envy,  and  every  pitiful  and  painful  feeling. 
So  keen  a  temperament  with  so  little  to  restrain 
or  satisfy,  so  much  to  distress  or  tempt  it,  produces 
contradictions  which  few  are  able  to  reconcile. 
Hence  the  unhappiness  of  literary  men,  hence 
their  faults  and  follies." 

Did  the  son  of  Margaret  Carlyle  write  thus  re- 
membering his  mother's  confession  that  he  was 
"gey  ill  to  live  wi',"  or  was  this  the  'second 
sight'  of  genius  enabling  him  to  cast  his  own 
horoscope  ? 

Carlyle's  next  toilful  task  was  the  translating  of 
"Wilhelm  Meister,"  and  for  which  DeQuincey, 
pouncing  with  something  of  jealousy  upon  sundry 
Scotticisms  that  stole  into  the  translator's  text, 
flayed  the  young  writer  in  the  pages  of  the  very 
London  Magazine  that  conveyed  the  "Life  of 
Schiller"  to  the  Jannie  Welsh  whom  'oor  Tam' 
was  then  courting  with  "desperate  hope!"  Yet 
sixty  years  later,  as  great  a  critic  said,  "To  this 
day — such  is  the  force  of  youthful  associations— 
I  read  the  Wilhelm  Meister  with  more  pleasure  in 
Carlyle's  translation  than  in  the  original." 

140 


CARLYLE'S  APPRENTICESHIP 

The  next  year  found  Carlyle  hard  at  work  upon 
the  four  volumes  of  "German  Romance"  that 
were  finally  published,  although  only  after  much 
tribulation,  in  J 827,  and  which,  somewhat  singular- 
ly, have  never  been  reprinted  in  their  entirety. 

Now  it  was  that  Francis  Jeffrey,  who  had  once 
rejected  him,  admitted  Carlyle  into  the  simon- 
pure  Edinburgh  Re'vie'w;  and  thus  began  that 
series  of  essays  of  which  Emerson  said,  in  the 
introduction  to  the  first  collected  edition  of  them: 
"Many  readers  will  find  here  pages  which,  in  the 
scattered  anonymous  sheets  of  British  maga- 
zines, spoke  to  their  youthful  minds  with  an  em- 
phasis that  hindered  them  from  sleep." 

The  first  four  of  these  essays  were  written  at 
the  Comely  Bank  residence  in  Edinburgh;  then 
followed  his  removal  in  the  utter  loneliness  of 
Craigenputtock  where,  between  July,  J828  and 
July,  J83J,  he  wrote  fourteen  other  essays  and 
also  "Sartor  Resartus."  At  last  Carlyle  had  ended 
his  long  and  weary  Lehrjahre;  then,  with  Teu- 
felsdrockh's  strange  manuscript  in  his  hand  he 
started  upon  his  Wanderjahre. 

Three  years  later  he  was  in  Cheyne  Row, 
Chelsea,  at  work  on  the  French  Re'volution. 

On  the  seventh  of  January,  1824,  when  Carlyle 
had  read  the  extract  from  his  Life  of  Schiller 
which  appeared  in  the  London  Times,  he  jotted 

141 


CARLYLE'S   APPRENTICESHIP 

in  his  Journal:  "Certainly  no  one  ever  wrote  with 
such  tremendous  difficulty  as  I  do.  Shall  I  ever 
learn  to  write  ease?"  After  ten  years  of  arduous 
apprenticeship  he  had  won  a  place  in  the  front 
rank  of  reviewers,  but  the  verdict  of  the  world 
upon  a  book  that  had  come  from  the  very  heart 
of  him  was  yet  to  be  heard.  In  the  solitude  of 
Craigenputtock  he  found  not  only  the  Philosophy 
of  Clothes;  there  he  also  found  his  authentic 
voice.  Before  going  thither  he  had  written  after 
the  received  models;  there  he  learned  to  let  the 
soul  of  him  speak  as  his  peasant  father  spoke, 
"nailing  things  to  the  wall."  Henceforth  in  the 
world  of  Literature,  it  was,  undoubtedly  "Thomas 
Carlyle,  his  mark." 

The  style  is  the  man;  the  tricks  of  Art  pale  into 
insignificance  when  the  materials  Thought  are 
fused  in  the  fire  of  Feeling.  Given  earnestness, 
insight,  vivid  imagination,  marvelous  memory, 
and  deep  convictions,  he  who  is  thus  endowed 
will  leave  the  imprint  of  himself  upon  his  day  and 
generation;  and  all  these  shining  qualities  and 
splendid  capacities  are  now  known  to  have  been 
Thomas  Carlyle's. 

The  crowning  consummation  of  his  Apprentice- 
ship is  the  finding  of  himself,  and  the  mint-mark 
of  his  fifty  years  of  Mastership  is  seen  in  the  dis- 
regard for  all  models,  the  unfaltering  trust  in  him- 

142 


CARLYLE'S   APPRENTICESHIP 

self,  and  the  high  courage  to  be  that  for  which  the 

Infinite  had  made  and  intended  him. 

The  example  that  he  has  left  for  every  scholar 

is  found  in  the  industry  that  did  not  loiter,  the 

toil  that  quailed  before  no  task,  the  devotion  to 

principle  that  never  faltered,  and  the  confidence 

in  the  Eternal  Justice  that  could  not  be  dismayed. 

Such  also  are  the  rewards  of  his  Apprenticeship — 

"a  possession  forever." 

S.  A.  J. 


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